LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



DDQ13S1357E 






,~J>- v '^^*'-'5>l.. "" ^ 



■^. 






7??-. 



'^^^'.^ /'\ -^i^ ^% 



O 



■4 o 






^.^ 



v^ .<v' 



^ 

•^ 










■n^o^ -'^^'-^ 



>?;" '^.^ ^•^■' 



^^0^ 



!(l^-%- 



o\^ 














,<^ 



'i((WS J 






.^>//^. 






V*^-* 









.V 

















STsm YATMaa^iam 



THE LIFE AND ADVENTURES 



OF 



PETER WHEELER 



■''■:^ff^. 



CHAINS AND FREEDOM 

OB, 

THE LIFE AND ADVENTURES 

OF 

PETER WHEELER, 

A COLORED MAN YET LIVING. 



A SLAVE IN CHAINS, 

A SAILOR ON THE DEEP, 

AND 

A SINNER AT THE CROSS. 



THREE VOLUMES IN ONE. 

BT 

THE AUTHOR OF THE 'MOUNTAIN WILD FLOWER. 



Mind not high things ; but condescend to men of low estate." 

Paul. 



NEW-YORK : 

PUBLISHED BY K S. ARNOLD & CO. 
1839. ^i"^"* 



44-- 



y 



Entired, according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1839, 
in the Clerk's Office of the Southern District of New York. 



PREFACE. 



The following Narrative was taken entirely 
from the lips of Peter Wheeler. I have in all 
instances given his own language, and faithful- 
ly recorded his story as he told it, imthout any 
change whatever. There are many astonish- 
ing facts related in this book, and before the 
reader finishes it, he will at least feel that 
" Truth is stranger than fiction." 

But the truth of every thing here stated can 
be relied on. The subject of this story is well 
known to the author, who for a long time 
brake unto him " the bread of life," as a bro- 
ther in Christ, and beloved for the Redeemer's 
sake. There are, likewise, hundreds of liv- 
ing witnesses, who have for many years been 
acquainted with the man, and aware of the 
incidents here recorded, who cherish perfect 
confidence in his veracity. 

He has many times, for many years, rela- 
ted the same facts, to many persons, in the 
same language verbatim; and individuals to 
1* 



VI PREFACE. 

whom the author has read some of the follow- 
ing incidents, have recognized the story and 
language, as they heard them from the hero's 
lips long before the author ever heard his 
name. There are also persons yet living, 
whom I have seen and known, who witnessed 
many of Peter's most awful sufferings. 

Of course, the book lays no claim to the 
merit of literature, and will not be reviewed 
as such ; but it does claim the merit of strict 
veity, which is no mean characteristic in a 
book, in these days. 

The subject, and the author, have but one 
object in view in bringing the book before the 
public : — a mutual desire to contribute as far 
as they can, to the freedom of enchained mil- 
lions for whom Christ died. And if any heart 
may be made to feel one emotion of benevo- 
lence, and lift up a more earnest cry to God 
for the suffering slave ; if one generous im- 
pulse may be awakened in a slaveholder's bo- 
som towards his fellow traveller to God's bar, 
whose crime is, in being " born with a skin 
not coloured like his own;" and if it may in- 
spire in the youthful mind, the spirit of that 



PREFACE. Yii 



sweet verse, consecrated by the hallowed as- 
sociations of a New-Enofland home — 



'a' 



" I was not born a little slave 

To labour in the sun, 
And wish I were but in my grave, 

And all my labor done." 

it will not be in vain. 

That it may hasten that glorious consum- 
mation which we know is fast approaching, 
when slavery shall be known only in the story 
of past time, is the earnest prayer of the 

AUTHOR. 



Certijicate of the Citizens of Spencertown, 

This is to certify, that we, the undersigned, are, 
and have been ivell acquainted with Peter Wheeler, 
for a number of years, and that we place /m// confi- 
dence in all his statements', — 

ERASTUS PRATT, Justice of the Peace. 
CHARLES B. BUTCHER, do. do. 
ABIAH W. MAYHEW, Deacon of the Presby- 
terian Church. 
CHARLES H. SKIFF, M. D. 
WILLIAM. A. DEAN. 
JOHN GROFF. 
DANIEL BALDWIN. 
ELISHA BABCOCK. 
PHILIP STRONG. 
PATRICK M. KNAPP. 
WILLIAM TRAVER. 
EPHRALM BERNUS. 
SilMUEL HIGGINS. 
WILLL\M PARSONS. 
JAMES BALDWIN. 
FRANCIS CHAREVOY. 

[It may be proper to state that many of these 
gentlemen have known Peter more than thirteen 
years ; likewise, that they are men of the first re- 
spectability. Author.] 



CONTENTS. 



BOOK THE FIRST. 

CHAPTER I. 

Author's first interview with Peter— Peter calls on the Au- 
thor, and begins his story— his birth and residence— is 
adopted by Mrs. Mather and lives in Mr. Mather's house — 
his " red scarlet coat" — fishing expedition on Sunday with 
Hagar when he sees the Devil— a feat of horsemanship- 
saves the life of master's oldest son, and is bit in the opera- 
tion by a wild hog— an encounter with an " old fashioned 
cat owl" in the Cedar Swamp— a man killed by wild cats— 
a short " sarmint" at a Quaker Meeting—" I and John 
makes a pincushion of a calf's nose, and got tuned for it I 
tell ye" — holyday's amusements— the marble egg—" I and 
John great cronies"— Mistress sick— Peter hears something 
in the night which he thinks a forerunner of her death— 
she dies a Christian— her dying words— Peter's feelings on 
her death. p^gg 17—35 

CHAPTER H. 

Peter emancipated by his old Master's Will— but is stolen 
and sold at auction, and bid off by GIDEON MORE- 
HOUSExO Hagar tries to buy her brother back— part- 
ing scene— his reception at his new Master's— sudden 
change in fortune— Master's cruelty— the Muskrat skins- 
prepare to go into " the new countries"— start on the jour- 
ney " incidents of travel" on the road— Mr. Sterling, who 
is a sterling.good man, tries to buy Peter— gives him a 
pocket full of " Bungtown coppers"— abuse— story of the 
Blue Mountain— Oswego— Mr. Cooper, an Abolitionist- 
journey's end— Cayuga county, New York. Page 36— S.^ 



10 COxNTENTS. 

CHAPTER III. 

They get into a wild country, " full of all kinds of varmints," 
and begin to build— Peter knocked off of a barn by his mas- 
ter — story of a rattle-snake charming a child — Peter hews 
the timber for a new house, and gets paid in lashes — Tom 
Ludlow an abolitionist — Peter's friends all advise him to 
run off— the fox-tail company, their expeditions on Oneida 
Luke — deer stories — Rotterdam folks — story of a painter — 
master pockets Peter's share of the booty and bounty — the 
girls of the family befriend him — a sail on the Lake — Peter 
is captain, and saves the life of a young lady who falls over- 
board, and nearly loses his own — kindly and generously 
treated by the young lady's father, who gives Peter a splen- 
did suit of clothes worth seventy dollars, and " a good 
many other notions" — his master df steals his clothes ^£^ 
and wears them out himself— Mr. Tucker's opinion of his 
character, and Peter's of his fate. P'^gc 56 — 82 



CHAPTER IV. 

An affray in digging a cellar — Peter sick of a typhus fever 
nine months — the kindness of " the gals" — physician's bill — 
a methodist preacher, and a leg of tainted mutton — " master 
shoots arter him" with a rifle ! ! — a bear story — where the 
skin went to — a glance at religious operations in that re- 
gion — " a camp meeting" — Peter tied up in the woods in 
the night, and "expects to be eat up by all kinds of wild 
varmints" — master a drunkard — owns a still — abuses his 
family — a story of blood, and stripes, and groans, and cries 
— Peter finds 'Lecta a friend in need — expects to be killed — 
Abers intercedes for him, and " makes it his business" — Mrs. 
Abers pours oil into Peter's wounds — Peter goes back, and 
is better treated a little while — master tries to stab him with a 
pitchfork, and Peter nearly kills him in self-defence— tries 



CONTENTS. 11 

the rifle and swears he will end Peter's existence now — but 
the ball don't hit — the crisis comes, and that night Peter 
swears to be free or die in the cause. Page 83 — 124 

CPAPTER V. 

Peter's master prosecuted for abusing him, and fined $500, 
and put under a bond of $2000 for good behavior — Peter 
for a long time has a plan for running away, and the girls 
help him in it — " the big eclipse of 1806" — Peter starts at 
night to run away, and the girls carry him ten miles on his 
road — the parting scene — travels all night, and next day 
sleeps in a hollow log in the woods — accosted by a man on 
the Skeneateies bridge — sleeps in a barn — is discovered — 
two painters on the road — discovered and pursued — fright- 
ened by a little girl — encounter with " two black gentlemen 
with a white ring round their necks" — " Ingens" chase him 
— "Utica quite a thrifty Uttle place" — hires out nine days — 
Little Falls — hires out on a boat to go to " Snackady" — 
makes three trips — is discovered by Morehouse j;^ — the 
women help him to escape to Albany — hires out on Trues- 
dell's sloop — meets master in the street — goes to New York 
— a reward of $100 offered for him — Capt. comes to take 
him back to his master, for " one hundred dollars don't grow 
on every bush" — " feels distressedly" — but Capt. Truesdell 
promises to protect him, " as long as grass grows and water 
runs — he follows the river. Pa^e Jt55 — 171 



BOOK THE SECOND. 

CHAPTER I. 

Beginning of sea stories — sails with Captain Truesdell for 
the West-Indies — feelings on leaving the American shore — 
sun-set at sea — shake hands with a French frigate — a storm — 
old Neptune— a bottle or a shave — caboose — Peter gets two 



12 CONTENTS. 

feathers in his cap— St Bartholomews— climate— slaves- 
oranges — turtle — a small pig, " bnt dam' old" — weigh an- 
chor for New York — "sail ho!" — a wreck — a sailor on a 
buoy — get him aboard — his story — gets well, and turns out 
to be an enormous swearer — couldn't draw a breath with- 
out an oath— approach to New- York — quarantine — pass 
the Narrows— drop anchor — rejoicing limes— Peter jumps 
ashore "a free nigger." Page 173 — 185 

CHAPTER ir. 
Peter spends the winter of 1806 — 7 in New-York — sails in 
June in the Carnapkin for Bristol — a sea tempest — ship be- 
calmed off the coast of England — catch a shark and find a 
lady's hand, and gold ring and locket in him — this locket, 
&c. lead to atrial, and the murderer hung — the mother of the 
lady visits the ship ; sail for home — Peter sails with captain 
Williams on a trading voyage — Gibralter — description oi'it — 
sail to Bristol — chased by a privateer — she captured by a 
French frigate — sail for New-York — Peter lives a gentleman 
at large in " the big city of New York." Page 185 — 199 

CHAPTER in. 

Peter sails for Gibralter with Captain Bainbridge — his char- 
acter — horrible storm — Henry falls from aloft and is killed 
— a funeral at sea — English lady prays — Gibralter and the 
lauding of soldiers — a frigate and four merchantmen — Na- 
poleon — Wellington and Lord Nelson — a slave ship — her 
cargo — five hundred slaves — a wake of blood fifteen hun- 
dred miles — sharks eat 'em — Amsterdam — winter there — 
Captain B. winters in Bristol — Dutchmen — visit to an old 
battle field — stories about Napoleon — Peter falls overboard 
and is drowned, almost — make New York the fourth of 
July — Peter lends five hundred dollars and loses it — sails 
to tlie West Indies with Captain Thompson — returns ta 
New York and winters with Lady Rylander — sails witlv 



CONTENTS. 13 

Captain Williams for Gibraltar — fleet thirty-seven sail — 
cruise up the Mediterranean— 3It. Etna— sails to Liverpool — 
Lord Wellington and his troops — war between Great Bri- 
tain and the United States — sails for New York and goes 
to sea no more — his own confessions of his character- 
dreadful wicked — sings a sailor song and winds up his yarn. 

Page 202—230 



BOOK THE THIRD. 

CHAPTER I. 

Lives at MadaraRylander's— Q,uakerMacy— Susana colored 
girl lives with Mr. Macy-she is kidnapped and carried away, 
and sold into slavery — Peter visits at the " Nixon's, mazin' 
respectable" colored people in Philadelphia — falls in love 
with Solena — gits the consent of old folks — fix wedding day 
— " ax parson" — Solena dies in his arms — his grief— com- 
pared with Rhoderic Dhu — lives in New Haven — sails 
for New York— drives hack— Susan Macy is redeemed 
from slavery— she tells Peter her story of blood and horror, 
and abuse, and the way she made her escape from her 
chains. Page 233—148 

CHAPTER II. 

Kidnappin' in New York— Peter spends three years in H?il- 
ford — couldn't help thinkin' of Solena — Hartford Conven- 
tion — stays a year in Mvudletown — hires to a man in West 
Springfield — maV/es thirty-five dollars fishin' nights — great 
revival in Springfield — twenty immersed — sexton of church 
in Q\a Springfield— religious sentiments— returns to New 
York— So/ena a^ain— Susan Macy married— pulls up for 
the Bay State again— lives eighteen months in Westfield— 
six months in Sharon— Joshua Nichols leaves his wife- 
Peter goes after him and finds him in Spencertown, New 

2 



J 4 CONTENTS* 

York — takes money back to Mrs. Nichols — returns to Spen- 
certowu — lives at Esq. Pratt's — Works next summer for old 
Captain Beale — his character— falls in love — married — loses 
his only child — wife helpless eight months — great revival of 
1827 — feels more like gittin' religion — " One sabba'day when 
when the minister preached at me" — a resolution to get re- 
ligion — how to become a christian — evening prayer-meeting 
— Peter's convictions deep and distressing — going home he 
kneels on a rock and prayed — his prayer — the joy of are- 
deemed soul — ^his family rejoice with him. 

Page 249—260 



BOOK THE FIRST. 



PETER WHEELER IN CHAINS. 



DEDICATED TO 

Every body who hates oppression, and don't 
believe that it is right, under any circum- 
stances, to buy and sell the image of the 
Great God Almighty ; and to all who love 
Human Liberty well enough to help to 
break every yoke, that the oppressed may 
go free God bless all such ! 

" I own I am shocked at the purchase of slaves, 

And fear those that buy them and sell them are knaves ; 

What I hear of their hardships, their tortures and groans, 
Is almost enough to draw pity from stones." 

COWPER. 



Author's first inUnnew toith Peter Wheeler. 17 



CHAPTER I. 

Author's first interview with Peter— Peter calls on the Au- 
thor, and begins his story — his birth and residence — ia 
adopted by Mrs. Mather and lives in Mr. Mather's house — 
his '• red scarlet coaC — fishing expedition on Sunday with 
Hagar when he sees the Devil — a feat of horsemanship — 
saves the life of master's oldest son, and is bit in the opera- 
tion by a wild hog — an encounter with an " old fashioned 
cat owl" in the Cedar Swamp — a man killed by wild cats — 
a short " sarmint" at a Quaker Meeting — " I and John 
makes a pincushion of a calf's nose, and got tuned for it, I 
tell ye" — holyday's amusements — the marble egg — "I and 
John great cronies" — Mistress sick — Peter hears something 
in the night which he thinks a forerunner of her death — 
she dies a Christian — her dying words — Peter's feelings on 
her death. 

Author. " Peter, your history is so re- 
markable, that I have thought it would make 
quite an interesting book ; and I have a pro- 
posal to make you." 

Peter. "Well, Sir, I'm always glad to hear 

the Domine talk; what's your proposal? I 

guess you're contrivin' to put a spoke in the 

Abolition wheel, ain't ye ?" -^ 

2* 



18 Sick a Book as Chas. Ball — every body stickin^ theirnose in it. 

A. *' Peter you know I'm a friend to the 
black man, and try to do him good." 

P. " Yis, I know that, I tell ye." 

A. *' Well, I was going to say that this ques- 
tion of Slavery is all the talk every where, and 
as facts are so necessary to help men in com- 
ing to correct conclusions in regard to it, I 
have thought it would be a good thing to write 
a story of your life and adventures — for you 
know that every body likes to read such books, 
and they do a great deal of good in the cause 
of Freedom." 

P. " I s'pose then youVe got an idee of 
makin' out some sich a book as Charles Ball, 
and that has done a sight of good. But it 
seems to me I've suffered as much as Charles 
Ball, and I've sartinly travelled ten times as 
fur as he ever did. But / should look funny 
enough in print, shouldn't I f The Life and 
Adventers of Peter Wheeler — ! ! ha ! ha ! ! 
ha ! ! ! And then you see every feller here in 
town, would be a stickin' up his nose at the 
very idee, jist because I'm a *' nigger" as they 
say — or " snow-ball," or somethin' else ; but 
never mind, if it's a goin' to du any good^ why 
I say let split, and we'll go it nose or no nose 
—snow-ball or no snow-balL" 



All ready to weigh anchor. 19 

A. "Well, I'm engaged this morning Pe- 
ter, but if you will call down to my study this 
afternoon at two o'clock, I'll be at home, and 
ready to begin. I want you to put on your 
" thinking cap," and be prepared to begin 
your story, and I'll write while you talk, and 
in this way we'll do a good business — good bye 
Peter, give my love to your family, and be 
down in season." 

P. " Good bye Domine, and jist give wy 
love to your folks ; and I'll be down afore two, 
if nothin' happens more'n I know on." 



A. "Walk in — Ah! Peter you're come 
have you ? you are punctual too, for the clock 
is just striking. I'm glad to see you ; take a 
seat on the settee." 

P. " I thought I couldn't be fur out of the 
way : and I'm right glad to see you tu, and 
YOU pretty well .'' and how does your lady 

du r 

A. " All well, Peter." 
P. " You seem to be all ready to weigh 
anchor." 

A. " Yes, and we'll be soon under way. — 



JJO -4 true story any Jiow — Genealogy of Peter. 

And now, Peter, I have perfect confidence in 
your veracity, but I want you to watch every 
word you utter, for 'twill all be read by ten 
thousand folks, and I wouldn't send out any 
exaggerated statement, or coloured story, for 
all the books in Christendom. You know it's 
hard to tell " the truth, the whole truth, and 
nothing but the truth ;" and now you will have 
plenty of time to thinks for I can't write as fast 
as you will talk, and I want you to think care- 
fully, and speak accurately, and we'll have a 
true story, and I think a good one." 

P. " I'll take good care of that, Mr. L 

and we'll have a true story if we don't have a 
big one ; but I'm a thinkin' that afore we git 
through we'll have a pretty good yarn spun, 
as the sailors say. I always thought 'twas bad 
enough to tell one lie, but a man must be 
pretty bad to tell one in a book, for if he has 
ten thousand books printed, he will print ten 
thousand lies, and that's lying on tu big a 
scale.'*' 

A. *' Well, Peter, in what age, and quarter 
of the world were you born .'"' 

P. <' As near as I can find out, I was born 
the 1st of January 1789, at Little Egg Har- 
bour, a parish of Tuckertown, New Jersey. 



HoiD Peter becomes a slave- No full-blooded quaker a slaveholder. 2 1 

I was born a slave .^ — and many a time, 
like old Job, I've cussed the day I was born. 
My mother has often told me, that my great 
grandfather was born in Africa, and one day 
he and his little sister was by the seaside 
pickin' up shells, and there con>e a small boat 
along shore with white sailors, and ketches 
'era both, and they cried to go back and see 
mother, but they didn't let 'em go, and they 
look 'em off to a big black ship that was 
crowded with negroes they'd stole ; and there 
they kept 'em in a dark hole, and almost 
starved and choked for some weeks, they 
should guess, and finally landed 'em in Balti- 
more, and there they was sold. Grandfather 
used to set and tell these 'ere stories all over 
to mother, and set and cry and cry jist hke a 
child, arter he'd got to be an old man, and tell 
how he wanted to see mother on board that 
ship, and how happy he and his sister was, a 
playing in the sand afore the ship come ; and 
jist so mother used to set and trot me on her 
knee, and tell me these 'ere stories as soon as 
I could understand 'em — " 

"Well, as I was sayin', I was born in 
Tuckertown, and my master's name was Job 
Mather. He was a man of family and prop- 



22 His grandfather stolen in Africa. 

erty, and had a wife and two sons, and a large 
plantation. He was a Quaker by profession, 
and used to go to the Quaker meetin's ; but 
afore I git through with him, I'll show you he 
warn't overstocked with Religion. He was 
the first and last Quaker I ever heard on, that 
owned a slave,* and he warn't a full-blooded 
Quaker, for if he had been, he wouldn't owned 
me; for a full-blooded Quaker won't own a 
slave. I was the only slave he owned, and 
he didn't own me^^but this, is the way he come 
hy me.t Mistress happened to have a child 
the same time I was born, and the little feller 
died. So she sent to Dinah my mother, and 
got me to nuss her, when I was only eight days 
old." 

" Well, arter I'd got weaned, and was 
about a year old, mother comes to mistress, 
and says she, * Mistress, have you got through 
wdth my baby V ' No,' says Mistress, ' no Di- 
nah, I mean to bring him up myself.' And so 
she kept me, and called me Peter Wheeler, for 
that was my father's name, and so I lived in mas- 
ter's family almost jist like his own children." 

" The first thing I recollect was this : 

* Would to God, it could be said of any other denomination 
of Christians in Christendom ! ! 
t A grand distinction for some Ug Doctors to learn ! 



Red scarlet coat— J and John keep Sundays ^mazin strict. 23 

Master and Mistress, went off up country 
on a journey, and left I and John, (John was 
her little boy almost my age,) with me at home, 
and says she as she goes away, ' now boys if 
you'll be good, when I come back, I'll bring 
you some handsome presents." 

" Well, we was good, and when she comes 
back, she gives us both a suit of clothes, and 
mine was red scarlet, and it had a little coat 
buttoned on to a pair of trousers, and a good 
many buttons on 'em, all up and down be-for- 
'ard and behind, and I had a little cap, with a 
good long tostle on it ; and oh ! when I first 
got 'em on, if I didn't feel big, I won't guess." 

*' I used to do 'bout as I was a mind tu, until 
I was eight or nine year old, though Master 
and Mistress used to make I and John keep 
Sunday ^mazin strict-, yet^ I remember one 
Sunday, when they was gone to Quaker-meet- 
in', I and Hagar, (she was my sister, and 
lived with my mother, and mother was free,) 
well, I and Hagar went down to the creek jist 
by the house, a fishin'. She stood on the 
bridge, and / waded out up to my middle, and 
had big luck, and in an hour I had a fine basket 
full. But jist then I see a flouncin' in the 
water, and a great monstrous big thing got 



24 / and Ha gar go ajishin' Sunday and see the devil — scart. 

hold of my hook, and yanked it arter him, 
pole, line, nigger and all, I'd enemost said, and 
if he didn't make a squashin' then I'm a 
white man. Well, Hagar see it, and she was 
scart almost to pieces, and off she put for the 
house, and left me there alone. Well, I 
thought sure 'nough 'twas the Devil, I'd hearn 
tell so much 'bout the old feller ; and I took 
my basket and put out for the house like a 
white-head, and I thought I should die, I was 
so scart. We got to the house and hid under 
the bed, all a tremblin' jist like a leaf, afeard 
to stir one inch. Pretty soon the old folks 
comes home, and so out we crawled, and they 
axed us the matter, and so we up and telled 
'em all about it, and Master, says he * why 
sure 'nough 'twas the Devil, and all cause you 
went a fishin' on a Sunday, and if you go down 
there a fishin' agin Sunday he'll catch you 
both, and that'll be the eend of you two snow- 
balls." 

A. " Didn't he whip you, Peter, to pay for 
it ?" 

P. " Whip us ? No, Sir ; I tell ye what 'tis, 
what he telled us 'bout the Devil, paid us 
more'n all the whippens in creation." 

A. " What was the big thing in the creek V^ 



Learns his a, b, c's — escapes — gits thrown from a k/rse. 25 

P. "Why, I s' pose 'twas a shark; they 
used to come up the creek from the ocean." 

A. " Did you have much Rehgious Intruc- 
tion r" 

P. " Why, the old folks used to tell us we 
musn't lie and steal and play Sabbaday, for if 
we did, the old hoy would come and carry us 
off; and that was 'bout all the Religion I 
got from them, and all I knowed 'bout it, as 
long as I lived there." 

A. " What did you used to do when you 
got old enough to work ?" 

P. " Why, I lived in the house, and almost 
jist like a gal I knew when washin'-day 
come, and I'd out with the poundin'-barrel, 
and on with the big kittle, and besides I used 
to do all the heavy cookin' in the kitchen, 
and carry the dinner out to the field hands, 
and scrub, and scour knives, and all sich 
work." 

A. •' Did you always used to have plenty to 
eat r" 

P. "Oh? yis, Sir, I had the handhn'ofthe 
victuals, and I had my fill, I tell ye." 

A. " Did you ever go to school, Peter .'^" 

P. " Yis, Sir, I went one day when John 
was sick in his place, and that was the only 



26 Plenty to eat — almost a gal 

(lay I ever went, in all my life, and I larned 
my A, B, C's through, both ways, and never 
forgot 'em arter that." 

A. " Well, did you ever meet with any ac- 
cidents ?" 

P. " Why, it's a wonder I'm alive, I've had 
so many wonderful escapes. When I was 
'bout ten year old. Master had a beautiful 
horse, only he was as wild as a painter, and 
so one day when he was gone away, I and 
John gits him out, and he puts me on, and 
ties my legs under his belly, so I shouldn't git 
flung ofl', and he run, and snorted, and broke 
the string, and pitched me off, and enemost 
broke my head, and if my skull hadn't a been 
pretty thick, I guess he would ; and I didn't 
get well in almost six weeks." Another thing 
I think on. Master had some of these 'ere old- 
fashioned long-eared and long-legged hogs, 
and he used to turn 'em out, like other folks, in 
a big wood nearby, and when they was growed 
up, fetch 'em and pen 'em up, and fat 'em ; and 
so Master fetched home two that was dreadful 
wild, and they had tushes so long, and put 'em 
in a pen to fat. Well, his oldest son gits over 
in the pen one day to clean out the trough, 
and one on 'em put arter him, and oh ! how 



Wild cats as thick as frogs— a man hUled hy tJtsm. 27 

he haided, and run to git out; I heard him, 
and run and reached over the pen, and catch- 
ed hold on him, and tried to hft him out ; but 
the old feller had got hold of his leg, and took 
out a whole mouthful, and then let go ; and I 
pulled like a good feller, and got him most 
over, but the old sarpent got hold of my hand^ 
and bit it through and through, and there's the 
scar yit." 

A. " Did you let go, Peter?" 

P. "Let go? No! I tell ye I didn't; the 
hog got hold of his heel, and bit the ball right 
off; but when he let go that time, I fetched 
a dreadful lift, and I got him over the pen, 
safe and sound, only he was badly bit." 

"And while I think of it, one day Mistress 
took me to go with her through the Cedar 
Swamp to see some 'lations, only she took me 
as she said to keep the snakes off. It was 
two miles through the woods, and we went .on 
a road of cedar-rails, and when we got into 
the swamp, I see a big old-fashioned cat-owl 
a settin' on a limb up 'bout fifteen foot from 
the ground I guess ; and as I'd heard an owl 
couldn't see in the day-time, I thought I'd 
creep up sUIy, and catch him, and I says 'Mis- 
tress,' says I, ' will you wait ?' and she says, 



^S B^ % 0, wilil )u)g — encounter with an old fashioned cat otcl. 

* yis, if you'll be quick.' And so up I got, and 
jist as I was agoin to grab him, he jumped 
down, and lit on my head, and planted his big 
claws in my wool and begun to peck, and I 
hollered like a loon, and swung off, and down 
I come, and he stuck tight and pecked worse 
than ever. I hollows for Mistress, and by 
this time she comes up with a club, and she 
pounded the old feller, but he wouldn't git off, 
and she pounded him till he was dead ; and his 
claws stuck so tight in my wool. Mistress, had 
to cut 'em out with my jack-knife, and up I 
got, glad 'nough to git off as I did ; and I 
crawled out of the mud, and the blood come 
a runnin' down my head, and I was clawed 
and pecked hke a good feller, but I didn't go 
owlin' agin very soon, I tell ye." 

" Well, we got there, and this was Satur- 
day, and we stayed till the next arternoon. 
Sunday mornin' I see a man go by, towards 
our house, with an axe on his shoulder ; 
and we started in the arternoon, and when 
we'd got into the middle of the swamp there 
lay that man dead, with two big wild cats 
by him that he'd killed: he'd split one on 
'em open in the head, and the axe lay buried 
in the neck of t'other ; and there they all 



A short sarmlnt at a (junker meet'm\ OQ 



lay dead together, all covered with blood, 
and sich a pitiful sight I hain't seen . But 
oh ! how thick the wild cats was in that 
swamp, and you could hear 'em squall in the 
night, as thick as frogs in the spring; but 
ginerally they kept pretty still in the day time, 
and so we didn't think there was any danger 
till now ; and we had to leave the dead man 
there alone, only the dead wild cats was with 
him, and make tracks as fast as we cleverly 
could, for home." 

A. " Did you ever go to meetings ?" 
P. " Sometimes I used to go to Quaker 
meetin's with mistress, and there we'd set and 
look first at one and then at t'other ; and 
bi'm'by somebody would up and say a word or 
two, and down he'd set, and then another, and 
down lie'd set. Sometimes they was the stil- 
lest, and sometimes the noisiest meetin's I ever 
see. One time, I remember, we went to hear 
a new Quaker preacher, and there was a 
mighty sight of folks there ; and I guess we 
set still an hour, without hearin' a word from 
anybody : and that 'ere feller was a waitin' for 
Ms spirit^ I s'pose ; and, finally at last, an old 
woman gits up and squarks through her nose, 

and says she, " Oh ! all you young gentlemen 
3* 



30 Make a pincushion of a calf's nose. 

beware of them 'ere young ladies — Ahem ! — 
Oh ! all you young ladies beware of them 'ere 
young gentlemen — Ahem — Peneroyal tea is 
good for a cold ! „_£;() and down she sat, and I 
roared right out, and I never was so tickled in 
all my life ; and the rest on 'em looked as so- 
ber as setten' hens : — but I couldn't hold in, 
and I snorted out straight; and so mistress 
wouldn't let me go agin. And now you are a 
Domine, and I wants to ask you if the Lord 
inspired her to git up, whether or no He didn't 
forsake her soon arter she got up ?" 

A. "Why, Peter, you've made the same 
remark about her, that a famous historian 
makes about Charles Second, a wicked king of 
England. Some of the king's friends said, the 
Grace of God brought him to the throne — this 
historian said, " if it brought him to the throne 
it forsook him very soon after he got there." 
A. " Did you have any fun holy days, Peter." 
P. '* Oh ! yis, I and John used to be 'maz- 
ing thick, and always together, and always in 
mischief One time, I recollect, when mas- 
ter was gone away, we cut up a curious dido ; 
master had a calf that was dreadful gentle, 
and I and John takes him, and puts a rope 
round his neck, and pulls his nose through the 



Git tuned f(/r it. 31 



fence, and drove it full of pins, and he blatted 
and blatted like murder, and finally mistress 
see us, and out she come, and makes us pull 
all the pins out, one by one, and let him go ; 
she didn't say much, but goes and cuts a par- 
cel of sprouts, and I concluded she was a go- 
in'' to tune us. But it come night, we went 
into the house, and she was mighty good, and 
says she, * come boys, I guess it's about bed 
time ;' and so she hands us a couple of basins 
of samp and milk, and we eat it, and off to 
bed, a chuckUn', to think we'd got off as well 
as we had. But we'd no sooner got well to 
bed, and nicely kivered up, when I see a light 
comin' up stairs, and mistress was a holdin* 
the candle in one hand, and a bunch of sprouts 
in t'other ; and she comes up to the bed, and 
says she, ' boys do you sleep warm f I guess 
I'll tuck you up a little warmer, and, at that, 
she off with every rag of bed clothes, and if she 
didn't time us, I miss my guess : and * now,' 
says she, ' John see that you be in bettei ousi- 
ness next time, when your dad's gone ; and 
you nigger, you good for nothin little rascal, 
you make a pincushion of a calfs nose agin,' 
will ye ?' And 1 tell ye they set close, them 'ere 
sprouts,''^ 



32 St. Valentine's Day — Mdrlleegg. 

A. " Well, Peter, you were going to talk 
about liolydays, and I shouldn't think it 
much of a holyday to be 'tuned with them 
sprouts.' " 

P. " Oh ! yis, Sir, we had great times every 
Christmas and New- Years; but we thought 
the most of Saint Valentine's Day. The boys 
and gals of the whole neighborhood, used to 
git together, and carry on, and make fun, and 
sicJi like. We used to play pin a good deal, 
and I and John used to go snacks, and cheat 
like Sancho Panza ; and there's where we 
got the pins to stick in the calf's nose, I was 
tellin' you on. We used to have a good deal 
of fun sometimes in bilein eggs. Mistress 
would send us out to hunt eggs, and we'd find 
a nest of a dozen, likely, and only carry in 
three or four, and lay the rest by for holydays. 
Well, we used to bile eggs, as I was say in', 
and the boys would strike biled eggs together, 
and the one that didn't get his egg broke 
should have t'other's, for his'n was the best 
egg. Well, we got a contrivance, I and John 
did, that brought us a fine bunch of eggs. 
John's uncle was down the country once, and 
he gin John a smooth marble egg : oh ! 'twas 
a dreadful funny thing, and I guess he's got it 



Peter happy. 33 



yit, if he's a livin' — well, we kept this egg, 
year in, and year out, and we'd take it to the 
holydays, and break all the eggs there, and 
carry home a nice parcel, and have a good 
bunch to give away, and I guess as how the 
boys never found it out." 

A. *' Why, you had as good times as you 
could ask for, it seems to me." 

P. *' Oh ! yis, Sir, I see many bright days, 
and, when I was a boy, I guess no feller had 
more fun than I did. And I mean, Domine, 
all through the book, to tell things jist as 
they was, and when I was frohcsome and hap- 
py I'll say so, and when I was in distress, I'll 
say so ; for it seems to me, a book ought to 
tell things jist as they be. Well, I had got 
about to the eend of my happy fun, for mis- 
tress, who was the best friend I had, was took 
sick, and I expected her to die — and sure 
'nough she did die ; and as I was kind 'a su- 
perstitious, one night afore she died, I heard 
some strange noises, that scart me, and made 
me think 'em forerunners of mistress' death ; 
and for years and years them noises used to 
trouble me distressedly. Well, mistress had 
been a good woman, and died like a christian. 
When she thought she was a dyin', she called 



34 Peter^s grief. 



up her husband to her bed-sjde, and took hiui 
by the hand, and says, ' I am now goin' to my 
God, and your God, and I want you to pre- 
pare to follow me to heaven,' and says ' fare- 
well;' she puts her arms round his neck and 
kisses him. Then she calls up her children, 
and says pretty much the same thing to them ; 
and then me, and she puts her arms round all 
our necks, and kisses us all, and says ' good 
bye dear children,' and she fell back into the 
bed and died, without a struggle or a groan. 
Oh ! how I cried when mistress died. She 
had been kind to me, and loved me, and it 
seemed I hadn't any thing left in the world 
worth livin' for ; put it all together, I guess I 
cried more'n a week 'bout it, and nothin' 
would pacify me. I loved mistress, and when 
I see her laid ir ♦he grave it broke my heart, 
I have never in all my life with all my suffer- 
in's had any affliction that broke me down as 
that did. I thought I should die : the world 
looked gloomy 'round me, and I knew I had 
nothin' to expect from master after she was 
gone, and I was left in the world friendless 
and alone. I had seen so?ne, yis many, good 
days, and I don't beheve on arth there was a 
happier boy than Peter Wheeler ; but when 



Tliomson rows Brechenridge up Salt River. 35 

mistress closed her eyes in death, my sorrows 
begun ; and oh ! the tale of 'em will make your 
heart ache, afore I finish, for all my hopes, 
and all my fun, and all my happiness, was 
buried in mistress' grave." 

A. *' Well, Peter, I'm tired of writing, and 
suppose we adjourn till to-morrow." 

P. " Well, Sir, that '11 do I guess— oh ! 
afore I go, have you got any more " Friend 
of Man?" 

A. " Oh ! yes, and something better yet — 
here's Thomson and Breckenridge's De- 
bate." 

P. "Is that the same Thomson that the 
slavery folks drove out of the country, and the 
gentleman of property and standing in Boston 
tried to tar and feather ?" 

A. "a7""YES."«^ 

P. " Well, I reckon he must have rowed 
Breckenridge up Salt River." ..^ 

A. " You're right, Peter, and he left him 
on Dry Dock ! ! I" 

P. " Good bye, Domine." 

A. "Goodbye, Peter." 



36 Peter enters into th^ field oj trouble. 



CHAPTER II. 

Peter emancipated by his old Master's Will — bnt is stolen 
and sold at auction, and bid off by GIDEON MORE- 
nOUSE.£3] — Hagar tries to buy her brother back — part- 
ing scene — his reception at his new Master's — sudden 
change in fortune — Master's cruelty — the Muskrat skins — 
prepare to go into '' the new countries" — start on the jour- 
ney " incidents of travel" on the road — Mr. Sterling, who 
is a sterling-good man, tries to buy Peter — gives him a 
pocket full of " Bungtown coppers" — abuse — story of the 
Blue Mountain — Oswego — Mr. Cooper, an Abolitionist — 
journey's end — Cayuga county, New York. 

Author, " Well, Peter, I've come up to your 
house this morning, to write another chapter 
in the book ; and you can go on with your 
boots while I write, and so we'll kill two birds 
with one stone." 

Peter, *' Well, I felt distressedly when mis- 
tress died, and I cried, and mourned, and 
wept, night and day. I was now in my ele- 
venth year. While she lived I worked in the 
house, but, as soon as she died, I was put into 
the field ; and so, on her death, I entered into 
what I call the field of trouble ; and now my 



Peter kidnapped ancC sold at anctian. 37 

Story will show ye what stuff men and women 
is made of. 

" My master didn't oini me, for I was made 
free by my old master's tcill^ who died when I 
was little ; and, in his will, he liberated my 
mother, who had always been a slave and all 
her posterity ; so that as soon as old master 
died, I was free hy law — but pity me if slavery 
folks regard law that ever I see :.=-£^ for slavery 
is a tramplin' on all laws. Well, arter mother 
was free, she got a comfortable livin' till her 
death. In that will I was set free, but I lived 
with master till after mistress' death, and then 
I was stole, and in this way. Master got un- 
easy and thought he could do better than to 
stay in that country, and so he advertised his 
plantation for sale. It run somethin' like this, 
on the notice he writ : 

' FOR SALE, 

* A plantation well stocked with oxen, hor- 
ses, sheep, hogs, fowls, &.c. — and flC?* one 
young, smart nigger, sound every way. c-£D 

" You see they put me on the stock-list ! ! 
Well, when the day came that I was to be 
sold, oh ! how I felt ! I knew it warn't right, 
but what could / do .^ / was a Hack hoy. They 



38 Peter sells for $110, to Gideon Morehouse. 



sold one thing, and then another, and bim'bye 
they made me mount a table, and then the 
auctioneer cries out : — 

* Here's a smart, active, sound, well trained, 
young nigger — he's a first rate body servant, 
good cook, and all that ; now give us a bid :' 
and one man bid $50, and another $60 ; and 
so they went on. Sister Hagar, she was four 
years older than me, come up and got on to 
the table with me, (they dassent sell her,) and 
she began to cry, and sob, and pity me, and 
says she, ' oh Peter, you ain't agoin' way off, 
be ye, 'mong the wild Ingens at the west, be 
ye ?' You see there was some talk, that a 
man would buy me, who was a goin' out into 
York State, and you know there was a sight 
of Ingens here then, and folks was as 'fraid to 
go to York State then, as they be now to go 
to Texas — and so Hagar put her arms round 
my iTeck, and oh ! how she cried ; $95 cries 
out one man ; $100 cries another, and so they 
kept a bidden' while Hagar and I kept a cryin' 
and finally,0:r'GIDEON MOREHOUSE^^j) 
(oh ! it fairly makes my blood run cold, to 
speak that name, to this day,) well, he bid 
$110, and took me — master made him pro- 
mise to school me three quarters, or he'd not 



Peter's sister tries to buy her brother back. 39 

give him a bill of sale ; so he promised to do 
it, and I was his Q^^Property.^^And that's 
all a slaveholder's word is good for, for he 
never sent me to school a day in his life. Now, 
how could that man get any right to me, w hen 
he bought me as stolen property ; or how could 
any body have even a legal right to me ? why 
no more as I see than you would have to my 
cow, if you should buy her of a man that stole 
her out of my barn. And yit that's the way 
that every slaveholder gits his right to every 
slave, for a body must know that a feller oicns 
himself. But I gin up long ago all idee of 
slavery folks thinkin' any thing 'bout laiD. ^J^ 
" Well, I should think I stood on that table 
two hours, for I know when I come down, my 
eyes ached with cryin' and my legs with stand- 
in' and tears run down my feet, and fairly 
made a puddle there. Sister Hagar, she was 
a very lovin' sister, and she felt distressedly 
to think her brother was a goin' to be sold ; 
and so she went round and borrowed and beg- 
ged all the money she could, and that, with 
what she had afore, made 110 Mexican dol- 
lars, jist what I sold for, and she comes to my 
new master, and says she, ' Sir, I've got $110 
to buy my brother back agin, and I don't want 



40 Pa r(s with hi s family. 

him to go off to the west, and wont you please 
Sir, be so kind, as sell me back my brother f 
* Away with ye,' he hollered, ' I'll not take 
short of 150 silver dollars, and bring me that 
or nothiii';' and so Hagar tried hard to raise 
so much, but she couldn't, and oh ! how she 
cried, and come to me and sobbed, and hung 
round my neck, and took on dreadfully, and 
wouldn't be pacified ; and besides, mother 
stood by, and see it all, and felt distressedly, 
as you know a mother must ; but, what could 
she do ? she was a black itoman. (t/^Now, 
how would your mother feel to see you sold 
into bondage ? Why, arter mistress died, it 
did seem to me that master become a very 
devil — he 'bused me and other folks most all- 
killin'ly. He married a fine gal as soon arter 
mistress' death as she would have him ; and 
she had 400 silver dollars, and a good many 
other things, and he took her money and went 
off to Philadelphia, and sold some of his pro- 
perty, and the rest at this auction I tell on; 
and then told her she must leave the premises, 
and another man come on to 'em, and she had 
to go ; and she and Hagar lived together a 
good many year, and got their livin' by spin- 
nin' and weavin', and she was almost broken- 



Reception at his new master s. 41 

hearted all the time ; and when I got way off 
into the new countries, I hears from Hagar, 
that she died clear broken hearted. Well, I 
was sold a Friday, and master was to take 
me to Morehouse's a Sunday ; Sunday come, 
and I was obliged to go. I parted from 
mother, and never see her agin, till I heard 
she was dead ; but you must know how I felt, 
so I won't describe it. She felt distressedly, 
and gin me a good deal of good advice, but 
oh! t'was a sorrowful day for our little family, 

I tell ye, Mr. L . 

Well, I got to my new master's, and all was 
mighty good, and the children says, " Oh ! dis 
black boy fader bought, and he shall sleep with 
me ;" and the children most worshipped me, 
and mistress gin me a great hunk of ginger- 
bread, and I thought I had the nicest place in 
the world. But my joy was soon turned into 
sorrow. I slept that night on a straw bed, and 
nothin' but an old ragged coverlid over me ; 
and next morning I didn't go down to make a 
fire, for old master always used to do that him- 
self; and so when I comes down, master scolds 
at me, and boxes my ears pretty hard, and 
says, ' I didn't buy you to play the gentleman, 
you black son of a bitch — I got ye to work.' 
4* 



42 Learns cabinet trade. 



" Well, I began to grow home-sick ; and 
when he was cross and abusive, I used to think 
of mistress. 

*' Master was a cabinet-maker ; and so next 
day, says he, ' I'm agoin' to make you larn the 
trade,' and he sets me to planin' rough cherry 
boards ; and when it come night, my arms was 
so lame I couldn't lift' em to my head, pushin' 
the jack-plane ; and he kept me at this cabi- 
net work till the first day of May, when I got 
so I could make a pretty decent bedstead. I 
come to live with him the first of March, and 
now he begins to fix and git ready for to move 
out to the new countries. Well, when we was 
a packin' up the tools, I happened to hit a 
chisel agin' a hammer, and dull it a little, and 
he gets mad, and cuffs me, and thrashes me 
'bout the shop, and swears like a pirate. 1 
says, ' Master, I sartinly didn't mean to do 
it.' ' You lie, you black devil, you did,' he 
says ; ' and if you say another word, I'll split 
your head open with the broad-axe.' Well, / 
felt bad 'nongh, but said nothin'. He adver- 
tised all his property pretty much, and sold it 
at vandue ; and now we was nearly ready for 
for a start. Master had promised to let me 
go and see sister Hagar, and mother, a few 



-5^07^ of miiskrat skins. 48 

days afore we started ; and as he was gone, 
mistress told me I might go. So I had Hberty, 
and I detarmined to use it. I had catched six 
large muskrats, and had the skins, and thinks 
I to myself, what's mine is 7ni/ own ; and so I 
up stairs, and wraps a paper round 'em, and 
flings 'em out the window, and puts out with 
them for town, and sold 'em for a quarter of a 
dollar a piece. I went Friday ; but I didn't 
see mother, for she was gone away, and Sun- 
day I spent visiting Hagar, and that niglit I 
got home. While I was gone they had found 
out the skins was a missin' ; and soon as I'd 
got home, I see somethin' was to pay ; for 
master looked dreadful wrothy when I come 
in, and none of the family said a word, 'how 
de,' nor nothing, only Lecta, one of the gals, 
asked me how the folks did, and if I had a 
good visit ; and she kept a talkin', and finally, 
the old lady kind a scowled at her, (you see 
the muskrat skins set hard on her stomach,) 
and finally, master looked at me cross enough 
to turn milk sour, and says he, ' Nigger, do 
you know anything 'bout them skins f Says 
I, 'No, Sir;' and I lied, it's true, but I was 
scart. And says he, ' you lie, you black devil.' 
So I stuck to it, and kept a stick in' to it, and 



44 SJcins sold dear— Abuse. 



he kept a growing madder, and says he, ' If 
you don't own it, I'll whip your guts out.' So 
he goes and gits a long whip and bed-cord, 
and that scart me worser yit, and I had to own 
it, and I confessed I had the money I got for 
'em, all but a sixpence I had spent for ginger- 
bread ; and he searched my pocket, and took 
it all away, and half a dollar besides, that Mary 
Brown gin me to remember her by ! /.^ — and 
then he gin me five or six cuts over the head, 
and says he, * Now, you dam nigger, if I catch 
you in another such he, I'll cut your dam hide 
off on ye;' and then he drives me off to bed, 
without any supper ; and he says, ' If you ain't 
down airly to make a fire, I'll be up arter ye 
with a raw hide.' 

*' Well, next day we went to fixin' two kiv- 
ered wagons for the journey ; and, arter we'd 
got all fixed to start, he sends me over to his 
mother's to shell some seed corn, up stairs, in 
a tub. Well, I hadn't slept 'nough long back, 
and so, in spite of my teeth, I got to sleep in 
the tub. He comes over there, and finds 
me asleep in the tub, and he takes up a flail 
staff and hits me over the head, and cussed 
and swore, and telled his mother to see I didn't 
git to sleep, nor have anything to eat in all 



Start for York State. 45 

day. Well, arter he'd gone, the old lady call- 
ed me down, and gin me a good fat meal, and 
telled me to go up and shell corn as fast as I 
could. Well, I did, and it come night — I got 
a good supper, and put out for home; and I've 
always found the women cleverer than the 
men — they're kind'a tender-hearted, ye know. 

" Well, we got ready, and off we started, 
and I guess 'twas the 9th of May ; and I drove 
a team of four horses, and it had the chist of 
tools and family ; and he drove another team, 
full of other things, and his brother-in-law, 
Mr. Abers, who was agoin' out to larn the 
trade ; and Abers was mighty good to me. 

" Well, we started for York State, and one 
night we stayed in Newark, and I thought 
'twas a dreadful handsome place ; for you 
could see New York and Brooklyn from there, 
and the waters round New York, that's the 
handsomest waters I ever see, and I have seen 
hundreds of harbors. 

" Next day we got to a place called Long 
Cummin, and put up at a Mr. StarUng's, and 
he kept a store and tavern, and they was fine 
folks. In the evenin' Mr. Starling comes into 
the kitchen where I was a sittin' by the fire, 
lioldin' one of the children in my lap, and he 



46 -Mr. Starling tries to huy Peter. 

slaps me on the shoulder, and master comes 
in too, and says he, * Morehouse, what will you 
take for that boy, cash down ? I want him 
for the store and tavern, and run arrants, &c.' 
Master says, ' I don't want to sell him.' — 
*Well,' says Starling, * I'll give you $200 
cash in hand.' Master says, ' I wouldn't take 
500 silver dollars for that boy, for I mean 
to have the workin' of that nigger myself.' 

* Well,' says Starling, * you'd better take that, 
or you won't git anything, for he'll be running 
off bim'bye.' And I tell ye, I begun to think 
'bout it myself, about that time. Well, I went 
to bed, and thought about it, and wanted to 
stay with StarUng ; and next mornin' Mrs. 
Starling comes to master, and says she, * I 
guess you'd better sell that boy to my husband, 
for he's jist the boy we want to git ;' and says 
I, ' Master, I wants to stay here, and I wish 
you'd sell me to these 'ere folks ;' — and with 
that he up and kicked me, and says he, ' If I 
hear any more of that from i/ou, I'll tie ye up, 
and tan your black hide ; and now go, and up 
with the teams.' Well, when we got all ready 
to start, I wanted to stay, and I boohooed and 
boohooed ; and Mr. Starling says to master, 

* I want your boy to come in the store a min- 



Peter'' s sorrow — travel on. 47 

ute ;' and I went in, and he out with a bag of 
Bungtown coppers, and gin ine a hull pocket 
full, and says he, ' Peter, I wish you could live 
with me, but you can't ; and you must be a 
good boy, and when you git to be a man you'll 
see better times, I hope ;' and I cried, and 
took on dreadfully, and bellowed jist like a 
bull ; for you know, when a body's grieved, it 
makes a body feel a good deal worse to have 
a body pity 'em. I see there was no hope, 
and I mounted the box, and took the lines, 
and driv off; but I felt as bad as though I had 
been goin' to my funeral. Oh ! it seemed to 
me they was all happy there, and they was so 
kind to me, and they seemed to be so good, it 
almost broke my heart : I had every thing to 
eat — broiled shad, cake, apple pie, (I used to 
be a great hand for apple pie,) rice pudden' 
and raisins in it, beefsteak, and all that ; and 
the children kept a runnin' round the table, 
and sayin', ' Peter must have this, and Peter 
must have that ;' and I kept a thinkin' as I 
drove on, how they all kept flocking round 
me when we come away, and I cried 'bout it 
two or three days, and every time master 
come up, he'd give me a lick over my ears, 
'cause I was a cry in'. If I should die I couldn't 



48 Kicked dreadfully. 



think of the next place where we stayed all 
night. We travelled thirty miles, and the 
tavern keeper's name was Henry Williams. 
Well, the day arter, we had a very steep hill 
to go down, and the leaders run on fast, and 
I couldn't hold 'em, and when we got to the 
bottom, master hollered, 'Stop!' and up he 
come, and ivhipped me dreadfully/, and JcicJccd 
7ne icith a pair of heavy hoots so hard in my 
back, I was so lame I couldn't hardly walk for 
three or four days, and every body asked me 
what was the matter. The next place we stop- 
ped at, the tavern keeper's folks was old, and 
real clever ; and master telled 'em not to let 
me have any supper but buttermilk, and that 
set me to cry in', and I boohooed a considera- 
ble ; and the darter says, ' Come, mother, let's 
give Peter a good supper, and his master will 
pay for it, tu ;' and so they did ; and as I was 
a settin' by the fire, she axed me, and I telled 
her all 'bout how I was treated, and says she, 
' Why don't you run away, Peter ? I wouldn't 
stay with sich a man : I'd run, if I had to stay 
in the woods.' Next mornin' the old man was 
mad 'nough when he see the bill for my butter- 
milk, and swore a good deal 'bout it. Next 
4ay we come to the ' Beach Woods,' and 'twas 



Story of the " Beach Woods'^ — Black mans tavern. 49 



the roughest road you ever see, and the wheels 
would go down in the mud up to the hubs, then 
up on a log ; and he'd make me lift the wheels 
as hard as I any way could, and he wouldn't 
lift a pound, and stood over me with his whip, 
and sung out, ' lift^ you Mack devil, lif'.^ And 
I did lift, till I could tairly see stars, and go 
back and forth from one wagon to t'other, he 
to whip, and I to lift; and so we kept a tuggin' 
through the day till night. That night we 
stayed to a black man's tavern ; and when w^e 
come up, and see 'twas a black man's house, 
master was mad 'nough ; but he couldn't git 
any furder that night, and so he had to be an 
abolitionist once in his life, any how ! ! ! Well, 
he didn't drive that nigger round, I tell ye, 
he was on tu good footin' : he owned a farm, 
and fine house, and we had as good fare there 
as any where on the road. 

The next day the goin' was so bad we 
couldn't git out of the woods, and we had to 
stay there all night ; and oh ! what times we 
did see ; I lifted and strained till I was dead : 
and that night we slept in the wagons — the 
women took possession of one, and we of 
t'other ; and the woods was alive with wolves 
and panthers ; and such a howlin' and scream- 



50 Jyohes and Panthers— Mr. Cooper, an ahoVa'wnlsf . 

ill' you never heard ; but we builds up a large 
tire, and that kept 'em off. We lay on our 
faces in the wagon, with our rifles loaded, 
cocked and primed ; and when them 'ere var- 
mints howled, the horses trembled so the har- 
nesses fairly shook on 'em : but there war n't 
any more sleep there that night, than there 
w^ould be in that fire. 

*' Next day we worried through, and stop- 
ped at a house, and got some breakfast of 
bears' meat and hasty pudden' ; and it come 
night, we made the ' Blue Mountain ;' and 
on the top of it was some good folks ; we stay- 
ed there one night, and Mr. Cooper, the land- 
lord, come out to the barn, and axed me if I 
was hired out to that man, or belonged to him I 
' Well,' said he, ' if you did but know it, you 
are free now, for you are in a free state, and 
it's agin' the law to bring a slave from another 
state into this ; and where be you goin' ?' ' To 
Cayuga County,' says I. * Well, when you git 
there, du you show him your backsides, and 
tell him to help himself.' 

The next night we stayed in Owego ; but 
I'm afore my story, for goin' down the Blue 
Mountain next day, the leaders run, and 1 
couldn't hold 'em if I should be shot, and they 



The race doion Blue Mountain — a philanthropist. 51 

broke one arm oiF of the block tongue. Well, 
I stopped, and master comes riinnin' np, and 
he fell on, and struck me, and mauled me 
most awfully ; and jist then a man come up 
on horseback, and says he to master, ' If you 
want to kill that boy, why don't ye beat his 
brains out w'ith an axe and done w^ith it — ^but 
don't maul him so ; ^ov you know, and /know, 
for I see it all myself, that that boy ain't able 
to hold that team, and I shouldn't a thought 
it strange if they had dashed every thing to 
pieces.' Well, master was mad 'nough, for 
that was a dreadful rebuke ; and says he, 
* You'd better make off with yourself, and 
mind your own business.' The man says, ' I 
don't mean to quarrel with you, and I won't ; 
but I think ye act more like a devil than a 
manl^Ji^ So off he went; and / love that 
man yit ! 

Next night we stayed in Owego ; and the 
tavern keeper, a fine man, had a talk with 
me arter bed-time ; and says he, ' Peter, your 
master can't touch a hair of your head, and if 
you w^ant to be free you can, for we've tried 
that experiment here lately ; and w^e've got a 
good many slaves free in this way, and the} 're 
doing well. But if you want to run away, why 



52 Reach their destination — Note — Bihle authority. 

run ; but wait awhile, for you are a boy yit, 
and there are folks m York State, mean 'nough 
to catch you and send you back to your mas- 
ter !'.=^* 

" Well, I parted from that man, and I re- 
solved that I would run away, but take his 
advice, and not run till I could clear the coop 
for good. Well, we finally got to the end of 
our journey, and put up at Henry Ludlow's 



* Yes, and there are folks, yes judges and dough faced politi- 
cians enough in the state now who would blast all the hopes that 
led a poor slave on from his chains; and when he was just 
stepping across the threshold of the temple of freedom, dash 
him to degradation and slavery, and pollute that threshold with 
his blood. Until a fugitive from tyranny sh:ill be safe in the 
asylum of the oppressed and the home of liberty, let us not be 
told to go to the south. And who are the men who would, 
who have done this? Certainly not philanthropists ; for the 
phihmthropist loves to make his brother man happy, and will 
always strike for his freedom. Certainly not Christians ; for 
it was one of the most explicit enactments of God, when he 
established his theocracy upon earth, and incorporated into 
the code of his government, that " Thou slialt not deliver unto 
his master the servant iliat is escaped from his master unto 
thee." (Deut. xxii. 15.) And can a man, who respects and 
regards the laws of heaven, turn traitor to God. and prostrate, 
at one fell swoop, all the claims of benevolence the fugitive 
slave imposes, when he lifts his fetter-galled arms to his bro- 
ther, and cries, " Oh ! help me to freedom— to liberty— to 
heaven'/" 



Author's reflections. 53 



house, in Milton township, and county of Ca- 
yuga, and State of New York." 

A. *' Well, Peter, I think we can afford to 
stop writing now, for I'm fairly tired out. 
Good bye, Peter." 

P. " Good bye, Domine." 



As I came away from the lowly cottage of 
Peter Wheeler, and thought of the toils and 
barbarities of a life of slavery, and returned 
to the sweet and endearing charities of my 
own quiet home, tenderness subdued my spi- 
rit ; and I could not but repeat, with emotions 
of the deepest gratitude, those sweet lines of 
my childhood : 

' I was not born a little slave, 

To labor in the sun ; 
And wish I were but in my grave, 

And all my labor done.' 

Oh ! I exclaimed as I entered my study, 
and sat down before a bright, cheerful fireside, 
and was greeted with the kind look of an af- 
fectionate wife, as the storm howled over the 
mountains, Oh ! God made man to be free, 



54 A picture of ^llavery. 



and he must be a. ivretch, and not a man, who 
can quench all this social light forever. I hate 
not slavery so much for its fetters, and whips, 
and starvation, as for the blight and mildew it 
casts upon the social and moral condition of 
man. Oh ! enslave not a soul — a deathless 
spirit — trample not upon a mind, 'tis an im- 
mortal thing. Man perchance may light anew 
the torch he quenches, but the soul I Oli ! 
tremble and beware — lay not rude hands upon 
God's image there- — I thought of the vast ter- 
ritory that stretches from the Atlantic to the 
foot of the Rocky Mountains, and from our 
Southern border to the heart of our Capitol, 
as one mighty altar of Mammon — where so 
much social light is sacrificed and blotted from 
the universe; where so many deathless spirits, 
that God made free as the mountain wild 
bird, are chained down forever, and I kneeled 
around my family altar, and I could not help 
uttering a prayer from the depths of my soul, 
for the millions of God's creatures, and my 
brethren, who pass lives of loneliness and sor- 
row in a world which has been lighted up with 
the Redeemer's salvation. What a scene for 
man to look at when he prays : A God who 
loves to make all his creatures happy ! A 



A prayer for freedoTd. 55 

wurid which groans because man is a sinner ! 
A man who loves to make his brother wretch- 
ed ! Oh! thought 1, if |)rayer can reach a 
father's ear to night, one yoke shall be broken, 
and one oppressed slave shall go free. 



56 " Varmints'^ thieve out in that lo'ili country. 



CHAPTER III. 



They get into a wild country, " full of all kinds of varmints,'* 
and begin to build — Peter knocked oft' of a barn by his mas- 
ter — story of a rattle-snake charming a child — Peter hews 
the timber for a new house, and gets paid in lashes — Tom 
Ludlow an abolitionist — Peter's friends all advise him to 
run off" — the fox-tail company, their expeditions on Oneida 
Lake — deer stories — Rotterdam folks — story of a painter- 
master pockets Peter's share of the booty and bounty — the 
girls of the family befriend him — a sail on the Lake — Peter 
is captain, and saves the life of a young lady who falls over- 
board, and nearly loses his own — kindly and generously 
treated by the young lady's father, who gives Peter a splen- 
did suit of clothes worth seventy' dollars, and "a good 
many other notions" — his master \S3^ steals his clothes .jrjl 
and wears them out himself — Mr. Tucker's opinion of his 
character, and Peter's of his fate. 

Author. " Well, Peter, you found yourself 
in a wild country, out there in Cayuga, I 
reckon." 

Peter. " You're right, there's no mistake 
'bout that; most every body lived in log- 



" P^annivts" thick otit in that wild country 57 

houses, and the woods was full of wild var- 
mints as they could hold ; well, as soon as 
we'd got there, we went to buildin' a log 
house ; for see master owned a large farm out 
there, and as soon as we gits there we goes 
right on to work ; we finally got the house up, 
and gits into it, and durin' the time I suffered 
most unaccountably. There we went to build- 
m' a log barn tu, and we had to notch the 
logs at both ends to fay into each oiher ; well, 
as [ was workin' on 'em, I got one notched, 
and we lifted it up breast high to put it on, and 
he sees 'twas a leetle tu short, and nobody was 
to blame, and if any body 'twas him, for he 
measured it off; but he no sooner sees it, than 
he drops his eend, and doubles up his fist, and 
knockes me on the temples, while I was yit a 
holdin' on, and down I went, and the log on 
me, and oh ! how he swore ! well, it struck my 
foot, and smashed it as flat as a pancake, and 
in five minutes it swelled up as big as a puff- 
ball, and I couldn't hardly walk for a week, 
and yit I had to be on the move all the time, 
and he cussed cause I didn't go faster. When 
I gits up I couldn't only stand on one leg, but 
he made me stand on it, and lift up that log 
breast high, but he didn't lift a pound, but 



58 Peter knocked off" of a huUding. 

cried out Hift, lift, you black cuss.' Well, 
we got the logs up, and when we was a puttin' 
the rafters on, I happened to make a mistake 
in not gittin' one on 'em into the right place, 
and he knocked me off of the plate, where I 
was a statidin' and I and the rafter went a 
tumblin' together, down to the ground. It 
hurt me distressedly, and I cried, but gits up, 
and says, ' master, I thinks you treat me 
rather.' ' Stop your mouth, you black devil, 
or I'll throw these 'ere adz at your head ;' 
and I had to shet my mouth, preity sudden, in, 
and keep it shet, and he made me Hft up that 
rafter when I couldn't hardly stand, and keep 
on to work ; and there I set on the evesplate a 
trembHn' jist like a leaf, and every move he 
made, I 'spected he'd hurl me off 'agin', and 
his voice seemed like a tempest — uh ! how 
savage ! But he didn't knock me off agin' — I 
had to thatch that barn in the coldest kind of 
weather, with nothin' but ragged thin clothes 
on ; and I used to git some bloody floggin's, 
cause I didn't thatch fast enough. 

''But I've talked long 'nough 'bout him, and 
jist for amusement, I'm a goin' to tell ye a story 
'bout a rattlesnake, and you may put it in the 
book, or not, jist as ye like. 



A stoi-y of a houncin set ofrattlesnahes. 59 

" We lived, as I was a tellin', in a dreadful 
wild country, and 'twas full of all kinds of wild 
varmints — wolves, and panthers, and bears, 
was 'niazin plenty, and rattlesnakes mighty 
thick ; and so one day, as we comes into din- 
ner, mistress seemed to be rather out of humor, 
and she sets the baby down on the floor in a 
pet, and he crawls under the bed, and begins 
to be very full of play. He'd laugh, and stick 
his little hands out, and draw 'em back, and, 
as my place in summer was generally on the 
outside door, on the sill, I happened to look 
under the bed, and there I see a bouncin' big 
rattlesnake, stickin' his head up through a big 
crack, and as the child draws his hands back, 
the snake sticks his head up agin'. I sings out, 
with a loud voice, and says I, 'master, there's 
a rattlesnake under the bed.' ' You lie,' says 
he; and says I, 'why master, only jist look 
for yourself," and, at that, mistress runs to the 
bed, and snatches up the baby, and it screamed 
and cried, and there was no way of pacify in' on 
it in the world. Well, master begins to think 
I speaks the truth, and we out with the bed, 
and up with a board, and there lay five bouncin' 
rattlesnakes, and one on 'em had twenty-three 
rattles on him ; and so we killed all on 'em. 



60 Rattlesnakes — ante 6eooa. 

Now that rattlesnake had charmi'd tliat cliild, 
and for days and days that child would cry till 
you put it down on the floor, and then 'twould 
crawl under the bed to that place, and then 
'twould be still agin' ; and it did seem as tliorgh 
it would never forget that spot, nor snake, and 
it didn't till we got into the new house. 

" Well, this winter we went to scorein' and 
hewin' timber for the new house, and I followed 
three scores with a broad-axe, and the timber 
had to be heived tu ; and I was so tired many 
a time, that I wished him and his broad-axe 
5000 miles beyond time. Well, I was a hew'- 
in' one of the plates, and as 'twas very long, I 
got one on 'em a leetle windin' and master see 
it, and he conies along and hits me a lick with 
the sharp edge of a square right atwixt my 
eyes, and cut a considerable [)iece of a skin so 
it lopped down on my nose, and on a hewiri' I 
had to go when the blood was a runnin' down 
my face in streams; and, finally, one of tl:e 
men took a winter-green leaf, and stuck it on 
over the wound, end it stopped blecdin' and it 
healed up in a few days. This warn't 7nuch, 
bur, I tell it to show the natur' of the man ; for 
any body will abuse power, if they have it to do 
just as they please. 



Veter^s friends advise him to run avcay. 61 

" Young Tom Ludlow, one of the scorers, 
comes up to me, arter master was gone, and 
says he, ' Peter, why in the name of God don't 
you show Morehouse tiie bottoms of your feet ? 
I'd be hun^ afore I'd stand it.' ' Well, Tom,' 
says I, ' I wants to wait till I knows a little more 
of the world, and then I'll show him the bot- 
toms of my feet icith a greasein\ Well, Tom 
laughed a good deal, and says he, ' that's right 
Pete.' 

" Tom was a great friend of mine, and he tried 
to get me to run off for a good while, and Hen, 
liis brother, he was a good feller, and he tried 
tu ; and Miss Sara, their sister, she was a good 
soul, and every chance she got, she'd tell me 
to run ; and Mrs. Ludlow always told me I 
was a fool for stay in' with sick a brute; and 
every time I went there, I used to git a \necc 
of somethin' good to eat that I didn't get at 
home ; and Mr. Humphrey's folks was all the 
time a tryin' to git me to run off. 'Why,' 
they say, ' do you stay there to be beat, and 
whipt, and starved, and banged to death f why 
don't you run ?' The reply I used to make was, 
wait till I git a leetle older, and I'll clear the 
coop for arnest. 

" Squire W^hittlesey, that lived off, 'bout six 
6 



62 ^4 slave has some joys in God's world. 

miles, where I used to go on arrants, says to 
me one day, 'Peter, where did you come 
from ?' So I ups and tells him all 'bout my 
history. Then says he, ' Peter, can I put any 
confidence in you f ' 'Yis, Sir,' says I; 'you 
needn't be afeared of me.' 'Well,' says he, 
* you're free by law, and I advise you to run ; 
but, wait a while, and don't run till you can 
make sure work ; and now mind you don't go 
away and tell any body.' 

" And, finally, enemost every body says * run 
Pete, why don't you run ?' But thinks 1 to 
myself, if I run and don't make out, 'twould be 
better for me not to run at all, and so I'll wait, 
and when I run I'll run for sartin. 

" There wasn't many slaves in that region, 
but a good many colored folks lived there, and 
some on 'em was pretty decent folks tu. Well, 
we used to have some ''musements as well as 

many sad things; for arter all Mr. L , 

a'most any situation will let a body have some 
good things, for its a pretty hard thing to put 
out all a body's joys in God's world ; and then 
you see a slave enjoys a good many little kinda 
comforts that free people don't think on ; and 
if a time come when he can git away from his 
master, and forgit his troubles, why, he's a 



\ 



Amusements round Oneida Lake. 63 



good deal happier than common folks. Well, 
we used to have some very bright times. We 
had a Fox Tail Company out there of forty- 
seven men, and Hen Ludlow was captain, and 
old boss was lefttenant, and I was private, and 
when we catched a fox, then 'twas hurrah hoys. 
Sometimes we used to have a good deal of 
'musements over there on Oneida Lake, and 
we used to have fine sport. We used to start 
on a kind of ajishin'' scrape, and cojnc out on a 
kind of a hunt. 

" Round that lake used to be a master place 
for deer. Oh ! how thick they was ! We 
used to go over and fish in the arternoon and 
night ; and goin' cross the lake we'd use these 
'ere trolein' lines ; and then we'd fish by pine 
torches in the night, and they looked fine in 
the night over the smooth water, all a glis- 
senin' ; and arter we'd done, we'd sleep on a 
big island in the lake, near the outlet — they 
called it the " Frenchman's Island" then, and 
I guess there was nigh upon fifty acres on it. 
We'd start the dogs airly next mornin' on the 
north shore, out back of Rotterdam, and they'd 
run the deer down into the lake, and then we'd 
have hands placed along the shore with skiffs, 
to put arter 'em into the water ; and we'd have 



^4 Three pecks full of black suckers. 

a sight of fun in catchin' em, arter we'd got 
'em nicely a swimmin'. 

*' There was a lawless set of fellows round 
that 'ere Rotterdam, that's a fact ; and when 
they heard our dogs a comin' to the shore, 
they'd put out arter 'em, and if they could git 
our deer first, they wouldn't make any bones 
on it : but they never got but one, for we used 
to have young fellers in the skiff that under- 
stood their business, and they'd lift 'em along 
some, I reckon. 

" But we used to have the finest sport catch- 
in' fish there you ever see — eels, shiners, white 
fish, pikes, and cat-fish, whappers I tell ye, 
and salmon, trout, big fellers, and oceans of 
pumkin-seed, and pickerel, and bass ; and, 
while I think on it, I must tell ye one leetle 
scrape there that warn't slow. 

" We put up a creek — I guess 'twas Chit- 
ining, but I ain't sartin' — a spearin' these 'ere 
black suckers, and of course we had rifle, 
powder and ball along. Well, we had mazin' 
luck, and I guess we got three peck basket- 
fuls ; and at last Tom Ludlow says, ' I swear, 
Pete, don't catch any more.' 

" 'Twas now 'bout midnight, and we went 
back to the fire we'd built under a big shelvin' 



All encounter with a painter on Oneida Lake. 65 

rock, and pitched our camp there for the niglit ; 
and this was Saturday night, and we begins 
to cook our fish for supper. Arter supper, 
while we w^as a settin' there, some laughin', 
some teUin' stories, some singin', and some 
asleep, the gravel begins to fall off of the ledge 
over us, and rattle on the leaves. 

" Well, we out and looked up, and see a 
couple of lights about three inches apart, like 
green candles, a roUin' round ; and Hen Lud- 
low says, ' That's a painter, by Judas ;' and I 
says, ' If that's a painter, I've got the death 
w^eapon here, for if I pinted it at atiy thing it 
must come.' 

" Bill, a leetle feller about a dozen year old, 
says he, ' If I'd a known this, I wouldn't a 
come ;' and so he sets up the dreadful lest 
bawlin' you ever see. 

" Hen says, ' Peter, can you kill that pain- 
ter ?' * Yis,' says I, ' I can ; but you must let 
me rest my piece 'cross your shoulder, so I 
shan't goggle, for it's kind'a stirred my blood 
to see that feller's glisseners;' and he did: 
so I took sight, as near as I could, right atwixt 
them 'ere two candles, as I calls 'em, and fired, 
and the candles was dispersed 'mazin quick. 

Then we harks, and hears a dreadful rustlin* 
6* 



g5 Bounty on painters — starts for home, 

up there on thf? rock, and bim'bye a most dole- 
fullest dyin" kind of a groan ; but \vc liears 
notiiin' inore> and so we goes under the rock 
to sleep, glad 'nough to let all kinds of varmints 
alone, if they'd only keep their proper dis- 
tance ; but mind you, we didn't sleep any 
that night. Come daylight, we ventured out, 
and up we goes on to the rock, and there lay 
a mortal big painter, as stiff as a poker. I'd 
hit him right atwixt his candles, and doused 
his glims for him, in a hurry. Hen, says he, 
* Now, Pete, you'll have money 'nough to buy 
<rins"erbread with for a o^ood while.' You see 
there was a big bounty on painters. And I 
says, 'Hen, if my master was as clever to me 
as your dad is to you, I should have money 
'nough always.' Hen says, ' I shall have my 
part of the bounty money, and Morehouse 
ought to let you have your'n.' 

" Arter this, he takes his hide off, and stuffs 
it with leaves and moss ; and we gathers up our 
fish, tackle, and painter, and starts for home, 
Sunday mornin'. 

*' Well, when we got home, master and 
mistress was glad 'nough of the fish, for they 
had company. Master's rule was to give me 
half the fish I got, (I'll give the devil his due,) 



Morduvfe steals Fcter^s lotmty vicvey. 67 

l)nt this time I didn't git any, and I felt rather 
hard 'bout it, tu. Hen and Tom says, * Pete, 
you call up at our house to night, and we'll 
settle with you for your share of the bounty 
for the painter.' 

'' So I goes to master, with my hat under 
my arm, and asks him, * If he'd please to let 
me go up to Mr. Ludlow's ?' * What do you 
want to go up to Mr. Ludlow's for f * To git 
my bounty money,' says 1. ' No, you main't 
go up to Ludlow's ; but you may go and bring 
up my brown mare, and saddle her ; and du 
you du it quick, tu.' 

" Well, I goes and does what he says; and 
he goes up to Mr. Ludlow's, and gits mi/ part of 
the bounty money, and pockets it up ; and thafs 
all I got for dousin^ his glifnsl^j^ 

'* While he was gone, Lecta, my friend, 
comes, and says, ' Peter, where's father 
gone ?' 

" ' To git more painter money,' says I, 
* tliat I arns for him nights.' 

"'I think dad's got money 'nough,' says 
she, ' without stealin' your'n, that you arn 
nights off on that Oneida Lake.' 

*' I says, with tears in my eyes, * I know 
it's hard, liCcta ; but as long as master lives, 



6S ftis " darter^* thiyths him a " dumh old kogj' 

I shan't git anything but a striped back ; 
and what I arns nights, he puts in his own 
pockets.' 

" ' I know it's hard, Peter,' says Lecta ; 
* but there's an eend comin' to all this ; and 
dad won't Hve always, j^crhajjs.^ And I'd 
often heard her say, arter master had been 
abusin' on me, ' I declare, 1 shouldn't be a bit 
astonished at all, to see the devil come, and 
take dad off, bodily — so there.'' 

*' Well, while I stood there a cryin', out 
comes Julia, and asks me what I was a cry- 
in' at? * What's the matter ?' says she. 

*' ' Matter 'nough,' says I, ' for master takes 
all I can am days and nights, tu.' 

" ' What ?' sa)^s Julia, ' dad han't gone up to 
Ludlow's arter your painter money f 

^* * Yes he has,' I says. 

" » Well,' says she, ' it's no mor'n you can 
expect from a dumb old hog.'«=^ 

Now, that speech come from a darter, and 
a pretty smart darter tu, and it was jist coarse 
'nottgh language to use 'bout master, tu ; but 
Miss Julia never was in the habit of makin' 
coarse speeches. ' But never mind, Peter,' 
says she, * 'twill be time to take wheat down 
to Albany, pretty soon, and tlien you'll git pay 
for your painter.' 



Property in man — sail on the Lake. 69 

" * Yis,' says I, ' and I'll git pay for a good 
many other things, tu.' 

05^ '• Now, Mr. L , I wants to ax you 

what reason, or right, there is, in the first 
place, of stealin' a man's body and soul, to 
make a slave on him f^=£Ji and then for steal- 
iji' his money he git s for killin' painters, nights'^ 
CI?^ But the slave ain't a man, and can't be, a 
slave is a thing ; he's jist what the slave laws 
calls him, CC?^ a chattel, property, jist like a 
horse, and like a horse he can't own the very 
straiohe sleeps on. But, never mind, (t/^there's 
a judgment day a comin' bim'by.«-£]()' And when 
he maketh inquisition for blood, he remem- 
bereth them.' You recollect you preached 
from that text a Sunday or two ago, and said, 
if my memory sarves me right, that, at the 
judgment day, God would require of every 
slaveholder in the universe, the blood of every 
soul he bought, and sold, and owned, as pro- 
perty ; for 'twas trafficin' in the image of the 
great God Almighty. Ah ! that's true, and I 
felt so when you said it." 

A. "Why, Peter, it appears that your mas- 
ter was not only cruel, but mean.''^ 

P. ''Mean? I guess he was, why, I'll tell 



^0 Susan falls overboard. 



you a story, and when I git to the eend on it, 
you'll see what mean, means : — 

*' We lived near the Lake, and master had 
a fine sail boat that cost a good deal of money, 
and the young folks round there, that felt 
pretty smart, used to sail out in it now and 
then, and I was captain. One day there 
comes four couples, and they wanted to sail 
out on the Lake with our gals, and so out we 
went. Susan Tucker, one of the gals, was a 
high-Uved thing, and the calkalation was, to 
go down about three miles, and the wind was 
quarterin' on the larboard side. Well, as I 
sat on the starn of the boat, she comes, and 
sets down on the gunnel, and I says, * Susan, 
that ain't a very fit place for you to set ;' for 
the wind was kind a bafilin'. She replies, ' I 
guess there ain't any danger,' and she'd no 
sooner got the words out of her mouth, than 
there come a sudden flaw in the wind, and 
that made the main boom jibe, and it struck 
her overboard, and on we went, for we had a 
considerable headway, — well, I let up into the 
wind, and hollered out, ' ain't any body a 
goin' to help ?' and there set her suitor scart io 
death, and all the rest on 'em. Well, I off 
with all my rags but my pantaloons, and I 



Pdcr "puts arter her.'' 71 

kept them on out of modesty till the last 
thing, and then I slipped out on 'em, hke a 
black snake out of his skin, and put out. I 
swam, I guess, ten rods, and come to where 
the blubbers come up, and lay on my face, 
and looked down into the water to see when 
she come up ; and pretty soon I see her a 
comin', and she come up within a foot I guess 
of the top, some distance from me, and sallied 
away agin. I keep on the look out, and pretty 
soon she comes up agin, and as soon as I see, 
I dove for her, and went down I guess six feet ; 
and my plan was to catch her round the neck, 
and when I did, she seized her left arm round 
my right shoulder, and hung tight. I fetched 
a sudden twist, and brought her across my 
back, and riz up to the top of the water, and 
started for the shore, and I had one arm and 
two legs to work with, and she grew heavier 
and heavier, and I looked to the shore with 
watery eyes, I tell you. Finally I got all beat 
out, and my stomach was filled with water, 
and I thought I must give up. Well, while I 
stood there a treadin' water a minute, I 
thinks I'd better save myself and let her go, and 
so not both be drowned. I hated to, but I 
shook her off my back, and she hung tight to 



72 Both nearly drowned — rescued. 

my siioulder, and that brought me on my side; 
and I kept one arm a goin' to keep us up, and 
cast my eyes ashore, and gin up that we must 
go down, and Jist that minute a young man 
come swimmin' along, and sings out, ' Pete, 
where is she f and I answ^ers, as well as I 
could, for I was now a sinkin', and she was 
out of sight of him, and says, ' under me,' and 
he dove, and catched her under his arm, and 
with such force, it broke her loose from me, 
and off he put for the shore ; and I gin up that 
/must sink, and so down I begins to go, and 
I recollect I felt kind a happy that Susan was 
safe, if/ was a goin' to die, for I loved her, 
and jist then another man come along, and 
hollers out, ' Pete, give me hold of your hand.' 
I couldn't speak, but I hears him, and I knew 
'nough to reach out my hand, and he took hold 
on it, and by some means, or other, foucht me 
on to his back out of the water, and finally got 
me safe ashore : and sure 'nough, there we all 
was, and the first thing I knew, he run his 
finger down my throat, and that made me fling 
up Jonah, and when I had hove up 'bout a gal- 
lon of water, I begins to feel like Peter agin, 
and I sees I was as naked as an eel, and I set 
still in the sand. Well, I looked out on the 



A ralegoslin^ — Smarts failier. 73 



Lake, and there was the boat, and this feller, 
Susan's suitor, was a rale goslin', and so scart, 
that he couldn't even jump into the water arter 
his lady love ; and there she was a rockin' in the 
troughs, {i. e, the boat,) and one of these same 
young men that came out arter us, swum out 
for her, and catched hold of her bow chain, 
and towed her ashore ; and I gits my clothes 
out, for up to this time I felt egregious streak- 
ed, all stark naked there, and I on with my 
clothes, and goes to Susan, and she was a 
comin' tu, and as soon as she could speak, she 
says, ' Where's Peter?' I says, 'I'm here. 
Miss Susan;' and she says, 'and so am I, and 
if it hadn't a been for you, I should have been 
in the bottom of that Lake." And while we 
was a talkin' there, who should come up but 
her father, and he says, ' my dear child how 
happened all this ?' 

" ' Pa,' says she, ' it all happened through 
my carelessness ; Peter warned me of my dan- 
ger, but I didn't mind him, and I fell off.' 

" 'Who saved you out of the water f says 
Mr. Tucker ; 'that poor black boy there, that's 
whipped and starved and abused so,' says Su- 
san ; then she turns round to me, still cryin,* 
7 



74 Peter rides in Susan'' s lap to Mr. Tucker'' s. 

and says 'Peter, have you hurt you much, my 
dear fellow ?" 

*' 'No, not much, I guess, Miss Susan,' says 
I. Mr Tucker then says, ' come darter, can 
you walk as fur as the carriage ?' 

" ' Yes, Sir,' says she, ' and Peter must go 
along with us, tu — come Peter, come along up 
to our house.' ' Yes, Peter, come along,' says 
Mr. Tucker, a cryin'. ' Yes, Sir,' says I, as 
soon ever as I've locked the boat ;' and he says, 
*if you'll run, V\\ wait for you.' Well, I did 
run, and lock the boat, and put the key in my 
pocket, and come back to the carriage, and 
says he, ' Git in, Peter.' 

'"No, Sir,' says I, Til ?m/Z:.' 

" 'Oh! Pa,' says Susan, 'have Peter git in, 
I want him with us ;' and, finally, I got in, and 
then Mr. Tucker drives on up to his house. 
When we got opposite master's, Mr. Tucker 
calls out to him, and says, ' I want to take your 
boy up to my house a leetle while ;' and he 
hollered out 'what's the matter?' So Mr. 
Tucker tells him all 'bout it ; and says he, 

*' 'Nigger, where's the boat.'*' 

'"Locked, Sir.' 

" ' Where's the key V 

" ' In my pocket, Sir.' 



Peter'' s reicardfor his generosity and courage. 75 

"'Let's have it!' 

" So I handed it out, and when all on us felt 
so kind'a tender, and his speakin' so cross, and 
not carein' anything for it, oh ! it did seem 
that he was worse than ever. ._/~0 

*' ' Go,' says he, ' but be back in season.' 
Oh ! how stern ! Well, we comes to Mr. 
Tucker's house, and Mrs. Tucker cried and 
wrung her hands in agony ; and Rebecca, her 
sister, cried and screamed, and Edwin, her 
brother, made a dreadful adoo ; and Susan 
says, ' why, don't be frightened so, for I ain't 
hurt any ;' and so we sat down and told all 
about it, and talked a good while, and Susan 
said, ' but I shall always remember that I owe 
my hfe to Peter, and he's my noble friend.' 
Well, pretty soon supper was ready ; we all sot 
down, I 'mong the rest, although I was ^ poor 
black outcast — and Susan, she sat down and 
drinked a cup of tea, and they wanted her to 
go to bed, but she wouldn't, and she axed me 
if I wouldn't have this, and if I wouldn't have 
that ; and, in fact, the whole family seemed to 
feel grateful, and I think I never enjoyed 
myself better than I did at that table. I didn't 
think so much of the victuals as I did of the 
folks. 



76 -Mr. Tuclier gives Peter a suit worth seventy dollars, 

" Well, arter supper Mrs. Tucker says, ' well, 
Susan, what you goin' to give Peter V 

a ' Why, Ma, anything that Pa will let me.' 
* Pa says anything, my dear, that Peter wants 
out of the store, you may give him.' 

" So Pa hands Susan the key and says, ' go 
into the store and give him a good handker- 
chief, and I'll be in by that time.' So we went 
in, and she gin me the handkercher, and then 
Mr. Tucker come in, and took down two pieces 
of handsome English broad-cloths, — oh ! how 
they shone ! one piece was green, and t'other 
was blue, and says he, ' Peter, you may have a 
suit off of either of them pieces you like best, 
from head to foot.' 

*' I says, 'I can't pay for 'em, and master 
would thrash me, if he knew I bought 'em.' 

*' Mr. Tucker says, ' you've paid for 'em 
already, and as much agin more ;' and I recol- 
lect he said some Bible varse, ' as ye did it 
unto one of the least of mine, ye did it unto me.' 
And so he measured off two and a half yards 
of blue for a coat, and one and a quarter green 
for pantaloons, and picks me out a handsome 
vest pattern, and three and a half yards of fine 
Holland linen for a shirt, and threw in the 
trimmin's — and then picks me out a beaver 



Mr. TucJcer gives Peter a suit icorth seventy dollars. 77 

hat, marked $7 50 — then a pair of shoes, with 
buckles, and turns round and says, 'now, Su- 
san, you take these things up to the house ;' 
and then he gin me a new handsome French 
crown, and filled all my pockets with raisins, 
and so we went into the house, and Mrs. 
Tucker measures me; and Mr. Tucker, says 
he, ' now, Peter, you'd better run home, and 
say nothin' to master and mistress, but come 
up here next Sunday morning, airly.' 

'* And so I puts out for home, and next day 
Susan sends for 'Lecta and Polly, our gals, and 
they stayed there three days, and had what I 
calls an abolition meetin' ; and, arter the old 
folks was gone to bed one night, 'Lecta comes 
to me and says, ' Peter, you've got a dreadful 
handsome suit made :' and Polly says, ' yis, 
that's what we've been up to Mr. Tucker's so 
long about, — we've got 'em all done, and a fine 
Holland shirt for you, all ruffled off for you 
round the bosom and wristbands, and we want 
to go up to Ingen Fields to meetin', next Sun- 
day, and I'll ask father to let you drive the iron 
grays for us. 

" Well, Sunday comes, and I goes and 
tackles up the grays and carriage, and 'twas a 
genteel establishment, and drove up to the 
7* 



78 Peters drives the grays and gats to meetin\ 

door, and 'Lecta tells me to drive up to Mr. 
Tucker's, and change my clothes, and leave 
my old ones up there ; and so I drove up to 
Mr. Tucker's in a hurry, and went in, and Mrs. 
Tucker, says she, ' now Peter, wash your hands 
and feet, and face clean;' and I did. And 
Mr. Tucker says, * now, Peter, comb your 
hair ;' and I did. Well, he gin me a comb, and 
so I combed it as well as I could, for Hwas all 
knots; and then Mrs. Tucker opened the bed- 
room door, and says she ' Peter, now go in 
there and dress yourself;" and I did; and out 
I come, and she made me put on a pair of 
clock-stockin's, and she put a white cravat 
round my neck ; and Mr. Tucker says, * now, 
Peter, stand afore the glass ;' and I did ; and 
then I got my beaver on, and there I stood 
afore the glass, and strutted like a crow in a 
gutter, and turned one way and then t'other, 
and twisted one way and then t'other, and I 
tell you I felt fine ; and Susan says, ' Pa, there's 
one thing we've forgot.' So she runs into the 
store and bring out a pair of black silk gloves, 
and hands 'em to me, and says, ' be careful on 
'em, won't you, Peter,' Then I was fixed out, 
and 'twas the finest suit I ever had. It cost 
above seventy dollars. 



MoreJumse stems peter^sfine clothes. 79 

"Well, I took the gals in ; and drove over, 
and took our gals in, and off we started for 
Ingen Fields. The old folks had gone on afore 
us in the gig, and we come up and passed 'em, 
and if master didn't stare at me, Til give up. 

*' Arter we got there, I hitches my horses, 
and starts, and walks along to the 'black 
pcvv,'._^ as straight as a candle ; and I out 
with my white handkercher, and wipes the seat 
off, and down I sot ; and I tell you, there icarn't 
any crook in my hack that day. 

"And master set, and viewed me from head 
to foot, all day ; and I don't b'lieve he heard 
one single bit of the sarmint all day — he seem- 
ed to be thunderstruck. Well, arter meetin' 
we drov^e home, and I shifts my clothes, and 
puts the team out, and comes into the house ; 
and master gives me a dreadful cross look, 
and says, * Nigger, where did you git them 
clothes f ' 

"'Mr. Tucker gin 'em to me. Sir,' I 
says. 

" ' What did Mr. Tucker give 'em to you 
for ?' he savs, in raoje. 

"'For savin' Susan's life. Sir,' I answers. 

" ' Susan^s life ? you devil ! What right has 
Mr. Tucker got to give you such a suit of 



80 Peter's things his master'' s property. 

clothes, without my hbeity f Hand me that 
coat.' And I did, but I feh bad. 

*' Well, he took it, and held it out, and says 
he, * Why, nigger, that's a better coat than I 
ever had on my baclt, you cuss — i/oti ;' and at 
that he took it, and flung it on the floor in 
rage. I picks it up, and hands it to 'Lecta, 
and she puts it in her chist. I had the plea- 
sure of wearing that coat one Sunday more, 
and then C^ he took it, and wore it out him- 
self!.:^ 

*' The gals says, ' Why, father, hoiv can you 
take away that coat ?' 

" ' Shet your heads, or you'll git a tunin'.' 

"*Well, father, but how Hicill look — and 
what will Mr. Tucker'' s folks think of you ?' 

" ' Shet your dam heads, or I'll take away 
the rest of his clothes ; for he's a struttin' about 
here as big as a meetin' house. I'll do as I 
please with my nigger^ s things ! QI/^ He's my 
property ! \<=£^ It's a dam pity if my nigger^s 
things don't belong to me I'^c^ 



* And with the same propriety, might he say, that his nig- 
ger's soul belonged to him ; or, if he possessed salvation by 
Christ, that his title to heaven belonged to him. With such 
premises, he could logically prove that he could kill his slave, 
and do no wrong, as he would innocently kill his ox, or other 



Mr. Tucker's opinion of Morehouse. 81 

*' Now, Mr. L , he robbed me of myself, 

then of my money, and then of my clothes, that 
a good man gin me for savin' his darter's 
life. Now you see wliat mean, means, 

" One day, arter this, I met Mr. Tucker in 
the road, and says he, ' Well, Peter, how do 
you git along ?' 'Oh ! Sir, well 'nough; only 
master has took my clothes away you gin me, 
and is a wearin' them out himself.' 

" ' What !' says he, * not them clothes I 
gin you .^' 

" ' Oh ! yis. Sir ; and I thinks it's cruel to 
me, and insultin' you most distressedly.' 

" ' Well,' said Mr. Tucker, ' he pught to be 
hung up by the tongue atwixt the heavens and 
'arth, till he is dead, dead, DEAD, without 
any mercy from the Lord or the devil.' " «5£]0 

A. " Well, Peter, I've seen cruel and mean 
things, but that is without exception the mean- 
est thing I ever heard of in my life. Where 



property. Here we see the legitimate and necessary inference 
of this barbarous, inhuman and wicked position, that it is right, 
vmder certain circumstances, to own property in man. A man 
is not safe, as long as he acknowledges this right; for if he be- 
lieves it ever can exist, he will exercise it as soon as circum- 
stances are favorable, and become one of the most barbarous 
and abandoned of slaveholders in an hour. 



82 Peters opinion of his master^ s fate. 

do you suppose the wretch has gone to, 
Peter?" 

P. " He has gone unto the presence of a 
God, who hates oppression and oppressors with 
all his heart ; and God will take care o/him, I 
tell you, and he^ll do it right tu.^^ 

A. " Yes, Peter, such men are rebels against 
Jehovah's government, and it's absolutely ne- 
cessary for God to punish them, unless they 
reform ; it's as necessary for God to send such 
men to hell in the world to come, as it is for 
us to hang a murderer, or put him in prison. 
And, Peter, which had you rather be, the 
slaveholder or the slave ?" 

P. " Domine, I'd rather be the most wiser- 
ablest slave in the imivarse, here and herearter, 
than to be the best slaveholder in creation ; for 
T wouldn't, under any circumstances, oitm a 
human bein\ The sin lies more in the ownin' 
property in a human bein', than in the 'busin' 
on 'em, 'cordin' to my way of thinkin'." 

A. " You're rights Peter ; and there will be 
no progress made in the destruction of sla- 
very, until you destroy the right of property 
in man ! ! 



Well enough only for one man. §3 



CHAPTER IV. 

An affray in digging a cellar— Peter sick of a typhus fever 
nine months — the kindness of " the gals" — physician's bill — 
a methodist preacher, and a leg of tainted mutton — " viastcr 
shoots arter him" with a rifle ! ! — a bear story — where the 
?kiu went to — a glance at religious operations in that re- 
gion — " a camp meeting" — Peter tied up in the woods in 
the night, and " expects to be eat up by all kinds of wild 
varmints" — master a drunkard — owns a still — abuses his 
family — a story of blood, and stripes, and groans, and cries 
— Peter finds 'Lecta a friend in need — expects to be killed — 
Abers intercedes for him, and " makes it his business" — Mrs. 
Abers pours oil into Peter's wounds — Peter goes back, and 
is better treated a little while — master tries to stab him with a 
pitchfork, and Peter nearly kills him in self-defence — tries 
the rifle and swears he will end Peter's existence now — but 
the ball don't hit — the crisis comes, and that night Peter 
swears to be free or die in the cause. 

Author. *' I've come up again, Peter, to go 
on with our story, and you can drive the peg 
while I drive the quill." 

Peter. '' I had as many friends in that re- 
gion as about any other man, I reckon, and if 
it hadn't been for 07ie man, I should have got 



84 -fcfer lashed to a tree and gashed to pieces. 

along very well ; but oh ! how cruel master 
was. As I was a tellin' on you, we went on 
buildin' the frame house, and in diggin' the 
cellar. I was a holdin' the scraper and master 
was drivin', and a root catched the scraper and 
jerked me over under the horse's heels, and 
he took the but eend of his whip, and mauled 
me over the head ; and says I, ' master, I hold 
the scraper as well as I can, and I wish you'd 
git somebody that's stronger than me, to 
do it. 

" * Come up here,' says he, as he jumps up 
out of the cellar, with a halter in his hand, ' and 
I'll give you somebody that's strong 'nough 
for you.' Well, I got up, and he makes me 
strip, and hug an apple tree, and then ties me 
round it, and whips me with his ox-goad, while 
I was stark naked, till he'd cut a good many 
gashes in my flesh, and the blood run dawn my 
heels in streatns ; and then he unties me, and 
hicks me down into the cellar to hold scraper 

agin..^ 

" At that, one of his hired men, who was a 
shovelin', says, ' Morehouse, you are too sav- 
age, to use your boy so, I swear ! !' Well, one 
word brought on another, till master orders 
him off of his premises. ' Out of the cellar,' 



A ma7i's Opinion of Morehouse — Xute. 85 

says he, in a rage, for jist so soon as he re- 
proved him, he biled like a pot, for you know 
if a body's doin' wrong, it makes 'em mad to 
be told on it. Well, out he got, and says he, 
as he jumps out on the bank, ' now, More- 
house, if you are a man, come out here tu.' 
But master darn't do that, for he was a small 
man. * Then pay me :' and master says, ' I'll 
be dam'd if I do.' ' Well,' says the man, ' I'll 
put you in a way to pay me afore night.' So 
it comes night, master rides up and pays him, 
and tries to hire him agin; but says he, *I 
wouldn't work for sich a barbarous wretch, if 
you'd give me fifty dollars a day.'* 



* There are certain principles^ developed in 
these facts, Avliich the reader ought to notice. 
Abolitionists meet with opposition from the slave- 
holder, and his abettors, for the same reason that 
this man was cursed by the tyrant who had just 
lashed Peter ! He was angry with the man, be- 
cause he told him the truth. It excited all the ma- 
lignity of a demon in his breast to be rebuked. 
He knew he was doing wrong, and conscience 
made the reproof a barbed arrow to his soul, and 
he raved because his pride was mortified, and he 
felt disturbed. — So is it now ! The Abolitionists 
8 



86 Pt^ter look dozen tcith the typhus fever. ^ 

"By being exposed, and abused, and whip- 
ped, and almost starved and frozen to death, 
through the winter, in the spring I was took 
down with the typhus fever, and lay on a bed 



are opposed for the same reason. — They are the 
first body of men in America, who have depicted 
slavery — they have dissected the fiendish monster, 
and brought down the contempt of the world, who 
love freedom, upon the head of the southern slave- 
holder. They have poured light, like a stream of 
fire, upon the whole South,.and disturbed the con- 
sciences of the buyers and sellers of souls. And 
we see the malignity of hell itself boiling out of 
the southern mouth, and southern press ; and poli- 
ticians and religious (?) editors, and ministers of 
the gospel, are all pressed into the vile and low- 
lived business of bolstering up tyrants upon their 
unholy thrones, and propping up the darkest, and 
blackest system of oppression that ever existed on 
earth. These men have not been needed before, 
their help was not called for ; — for nothing was be- 
ing done to break down slavery. The Coloniza- 
tion Society, met with a different fate at the South, 
and for this reason it was sustained by all slave- 
holders who knew the policy. It was the best 
friend the slaveholder ever had — it kept the con- 
sciences of the tyrants quiet — it was a healing 



A Senator^ s opinion of the Colonization Society. 87 

of straw, behind the back kitchen door, six 
months, almost dead ; and the doctor come to 
see me every day, and finally says he to mas- 
ter, 'if you want that boy to git well, you must 



plaster just large enough for the sore. — And some 
of the most distinguished slaveholders in the Uni- 
ted States, some of them officers of the American 
Colonization Society, and the most liberal donors 
of its funds, told the author of this note, that, they 
considered the Society the firmest support slavery 
had in the worlds for 'twould keep the North and 
the South quiet about their peculiar institutions. 
" The Society," said one of them, who was at the 
time a member of the United States Senate, " has 
carried away about three thousand or four thou- 
sand niggers in twenty years^ and the increase 
has been over half a million. Noiv, Sir, 1 can 
afford, on selfish principles, to give ten thousand 
dollars a year to that Society, rather than have 
it go down; for when it goes doton, slavery 
will go with it, and it will go down just as 
soon as it loses the confidence of the people of the 
North ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ,^ Xary good reason why 
slaveholders should support Colonization !!!!!! 
There is not the faintest doubt in creation, that 
the great mass of the South wish slavery, under 
the circumstances, to continue; and they make 



gg Jf Slavery (tus it will die hard. 



give him a decenter place to lay than all that 
comes tu, for 'taint fit for a sick dog.' 

»' So the gals moved me up stairs, in their 
arms, and there I lay. They was kind to me 



war against the Abolitionists because they want it 
to stop, and are doing all they can to put it down ; 
(for this is the definition of an Abolitionist ;) just 
as the drunkard makes war upon the Temperance 
Reformation, because it strikes a blow at Ins idol ; 
just as infidels oppose revivals, because they dis- 
turb their consciences, and make infidelity con- 
temptible. Now, I hesitate not to say, that no sys- 
tem of principles, or measures, will ever do away 
with slavery, except that system which meets with 
the determined, and combined opposition of slave- 
holders, and those who are interested in sustaining 
the system. For the system that destroys slavery, 
must aim a deadly blow at selfishness, and this will 
excite malignity, and this will show itself out in the 
gall that is poured upon Abolitionists, from the 
cowardly and sophistical apologies of Pro-Slavery 
Princeton Divines, down to the hard, but not con- 
vincing arguments of brick-bats. 

The truth is, that the South oppose Abolition, 
not because " it has put back emancipation," as 
the New York Observer says, — for, in that case, 
its champions would be found south of " Mason's 



A hard Doctor's bilL 89 

durin' my sickness, but master was very indif- 
ferent, and didn't seem to care whether I lived 
or died. Well, the gals, one pleasant day in 
the fall, took me in their arms, and carried 
me down stairs, and put me in a little baby 
wagon, and drew me 'bout twenty rods and 
back, and then took me up stairs agin', oh ! 
how tired I was, and they did that every day, 
till I got so I could walk about, and I shall al- 
ways remember it in 'em, tu. 

" Well, in 'bout two months arter this, I got 
so I could work a leetle, and one day Doctor 
Walker comes in with his bill of seventy odd 
dollars ; and master says he, ' / icish the dam 



and Dixon's line," — but, because Abolition has a 
direct, and decided, and tremendous influence in 
hurling the system of heathenish, and cruel op- 
pression to the ground. But there are some^ a 
noble, an immortal few, hearts in the South who 
are waiting for the consolation of Africa, who bless 
God for every prayer we off'er, and for every con- 
vert we gain. And the prayers of every man, and 
woman, in the slaveholding states, who longs for 
the freedom of the slave, follow the Abolitionists, 
and contribute to the spread and triumph of our 
principles. 

8* 



90 -^ tamrea teg of mittton.. 

nigger had died, and then I should nH had this 
money to pay.'' Master payed him off arter 
some jaxviug ; but oh ! how savage master was 
to me arter this !* 

" Well, next Sunday a Methodist preacher 
comes along, and was agoin' to preach at In- 
g^exi Fields. And so he and his wife come 
down to dine with us, and we cooked a leg of 
mutton we had on hand, for dinner, and got it 
on the table, and all sets down, and master be- 
gins to cut it, and come tu, 'twas distressedly 
tainted round the bone, and smelled bad. 

" Well, master orders it off the table ; and 
I goes and knocks over five chickens, and 
dresses 'em, and friccazeed them in a hurry, 
and got 'em on to the table ; and I guess we 
didn't hinder 'em mor'n half an hour. 

*' Well, nobody could stand the mutton, it 
stunk so ; but master tells the folks to give 
me nothin' else to eat ; and I eat, and eat 
away upon it, day afier day, as long as I could; 
and then I'd tear off bits, and hide 'em in my 



* One would think that so long a time for reflection, would 
have softened the poor tyrant's heart — but it is no easy matter 
to eradicate the tyranny which is fostered in the bosom of the 
possessor of irresponsible power. 



Peter buries li—^r rises Jrom the grave. 9 1 

bosom, and carry 'em out, and fling 'em away, 
to git rid on it ; and one night, when it stunk 
so bad it fairly knocked me do\vn, I takes the 
whole frame and leaves for the lot with it, and 
buries it ; and thinks, says I, now the old 

mutton leg won't trouble me any more. 

01?** But it happened, that a few days arter 
this, that we was ploughin' that lot, and he 
was holdin' the plough ; and fust he knows, 
up comes the mutton leg, and fust he looks at 
it, and then at me, and takes it up, and scrapes 
the dirt off on it — and oh ! how he biled ! — and 
says he, ' You black devil, what did you hide 
that mutton for ?' And he took the whip out 
of my hand, and cut me with it a few times ; 
and says I, ' Master, I won't stand this ;' and 
off I run towards the house, and he arter, as 
fast as we could clip it ; and he into the house 
and gits the rifle, and I see it, and oh ! how I 
cleared the coop into the lots ; and as I was 
a goin' over a knoll, he let strip arter me, and 
I hears the ball whistle over my head. I tell 
ye, how it come I — and I scart enemost to 
death. 

" Well, I wanders round a while, my heart 
a pittepattin' all the time, and finally, comes 
back to the house. But I see him a comin* 



92 Morehouse " shoots arter^^ Peter twice. 

with the rifle agin' as I got into the lot, and I 
fled for shelter into the shell of an old hemlock- 
tree left standin', (you've seen such arter a lot 
is burnt,) and he see me, and he let strip agin', 
and whiz went the ball through the old shell, 
about a foot over my head, for I'd squat down, 
and if I hadn't he'd a fixed me out as stiflf as 
a maggot. He comes up, and sings out, ' You 
dead, nigger ?' ' Yis, Sir.' 

" ' Well, what do ye speak for, then, you 
black cuss f' Then he catches hold on me, 
and drags me out, and beats me with a club, 
till I icas dead for arnest^ enemost ; and then, 
lookin' at the hole in the tree, he turns to me, 
lyin' on the ground, and says, ' Next time I'll 
bore a hole through i/ou, you black son of a 
bitch. Now drive that team, and straight, tu, 
or you'll catch a junk of lead into you.' 

" Well, I hobbled along, and we ploughed 
all day ; and come night, I boohooed and cried 
a good deal, and the children gits round me, 
and asks, ' What's the matter, Peter ?' I tells 
'em, ' Master's been a poundin' on me, and 
then he shot arter me, and I don't know what 
he win do next.' Julia speaks, and says, ' I 
declare it's a wonder the devil don't coine and 
take father oflf.' 



Sympathy from " the gals" — a bear story. 03 

" He orders the family not to give me any 
sapper ; but arter he'd gone to bed, the gals 
comes along, and one on 'em treads on my 
toe, and gin me the wink, and I know'd what 
it meant ; and so I goes into the w^ood-house, 
and finds a good supper laid on a beam, where 
I'd got many a good bite ; and went off to bed 
with a heavy heart. 

" But, as I hate to be a tellln' bloody stories 
all the time, I'll jist give you a short one 'bcftat 
a bear ; for I was as mighty a hand for bears 
as ever ye see. 

"One night I w'ent along arter my cows 
into the woods, a whistlin' and a singin' along, 
with the rifle on my shoulder, a listenin' for 
my cow-bell, but couldn't hear nothing on it ; 
and so on I goes a good ways, and hears no- 
thin' yit ; and I'd hearn old-fashioned people 
say, you must clap your ear down on the 
ground to hear your cow-bell, and I did, and I 
hears it away towards the house ; and so for 
home I starts ; and it gits to be kind'a dusk- 
ish ; and the first thing I hears or sees, was 
right afore me, a great big- black bear, that riz 
right up out of the scrub-oaks, and stood on 
his hind feet ; and I was so scart, I didn't 
know how to manage the business ; and there 



94 Peter put ahcixt two fires. 



I Stood atwixt two evils ; one way I was 'fraid 
of the dark, and t'other I was 'fraid of the 
bear ; and finally, I starts and runs from him, 
and he jist then down on his legs and put arter 
me. Well, I turns round and faces him, and 
he riz up on his hind feet agin', and kind'a 
growled. Atwixt me and him, there was a 
small black oak staddle, and thinks I to my- 
self, if I can git to that, I can hold my gun 
steady 'nough to shoot him ; but then I was 
afeard I shouldn't kill him; and if I didn't he'd 
kill me. However, I starts for the staddle ; 
and he kind'a growled, and wiggled his short 
tail, and seemed to be tickled to think I was 
a comin' towards him. As quick as I got up 
to the staddle, I cocked my piece, and aimed 
right at his brisket, atwixt his fore legs, as 
near as I could, and fired — and run; and never 
looked behind me, to see whether I'd killed 
my adversary or not, and put for the house as 
fast I could. Well, up I come to the house, 
so short-winded, that I puffed and blowed like 
a steam-boat ; and old master says he, * What 
you shot, nigger V 

" ' A bear. Sir.' 

*' ' Where is he V 



Peter loses the skin — ckurclies. 95 

" * In the scrub-oaks, out there ; and I 
b'lieve I killed him, tu.' 

*' 'Killed him? you black puppy; go and 
git t'other rifle, and load it.' And I goes. 
* Now,' says he, ' start back for your bear ; 
and if you han't shot any, I'll shoot i/ou.^ And 
so back I goes ; and master follows along be- 
hind me, half scared to pieces, for fear my 
dead bear would bite him. 

Well, come to the scrub-oaks, there lay my 
bear a strugglin', with his fore-paws hold on a 
scrub-oak, a twistin' it round and round, and 
then master steps up, as resolute as an Ingen 
warrior, to shoot him, and he first made me 
fire into his head, and then he fired into his 
heart ; and when we'd killed him dead, we 
draws him to the house and skins him ; and I 
think 'twas the fattest bear I ever see in all 
my life. 

Well, that fall master went to Philadelphia, 
and he takes that skin with five others I'd kill- 
ed, that he'd already got the premium on, and 
sold 'em in Philadelphia — and in all, they come 
to over one hundred dollars, bounty, skins, and 
all, to say nothin' at all 'bout meat ; and he never 
gin me a Bungtown copper out of the whole. 



QQ Peter s adccntures in a Cn^np tii'iedn^. 

Noj not enough to buy a pinch of snutf, or a 
chew of tobacco.* 

A. " Were there any churches in that re- 
gion ?" 

P. "Yis, Sir; there was two of our gals 
belono^ed to the Methodist meetin' — Julia and 
Polly, and I used to have to drive them to 
meetin' every other Sunday, to a place about 
four or five miles ofF, towards Auburn, called 
Plane Hill. Every season we used to have a 
Camp meetin', at what's called Scipio Plains, 
and used to have to go and strike a tent and 
carry down the family, and wait on 'cm till the 
meetin' was over. AVell, the most I can recol- 
lect about them meetin's was, they used to 
make a despod hollerin' and shoutin'. Some 
would sing 'glory hallelujah, and 'amen,' and 
some, ' I can see Jesus Christ, I see him a 
comin', I see him a comin',' and I was jist fool 
enouo^h to look and see if I could see him, but 
I never see anything. 

*'One Camp meetin' we had I went to, and 
paid strict 'tention, and it seemed to me that 



* Another exemplificatiou of the abominable doctrine of the 
right of property in man ! Concede this right, and his master 
did right, and Peter ought not to comphiin. 



Peter^s opinion of religion — •' cuts stick." 07 

a part of the sarmint was aimed at me, straight, 
but I was so ignorant that I didn't take the 
sense on it. In what they calls their * prayin' 
circles,' there was a colored man — quite an 
old man, but mighty good, for he made a great 
prayer ; and while he prayed, a good many old 
and young cried, and shed a good many tears. 
Well, seein' them cry, made me cry, I 'spose, 
for I can't assign any other reason ; and this 
colored man see me cryin' and he comes tome 
and says he, ' my son, do you want religion f 
' Yis, Sir,' says I, ' what is religion ?' He 
speaks in a kind of a broken language, and 
says, ' Religion is to do as we do — sing and 
shout and pray, and call on God ; and don't 
you want us to pray for you?' 

*' ' Yis, Sir,' says I, 'I wants every body to 
pray for me.' 

" So he speaks to a minister, and says I 
wants to be prayed for ; and so they gits into 
a ring, and crowds round me Hke a flock of 
sheep round a man that's got a salt dish, I 
don't want to make a wrojjg comparison, but I 
can't think of nothin' else so near like it. Then 
this white minister tells me I must git down on 
my knees ; and so down I gits, and they begins 
to pray, and shout, and sing, and clap their 



98 Pclo- gets scart hy the hreihren like tarnation. 

hands, and I was scart, and looked two or three 
times to git a chance to cut stick and be off, 
but I couldn't find a place to git out of the ring ; 
and I tell ye, thinks says I, ' if this is religion^ 
Tve got ^nough on it, and Fll be off.^ They prayed 
God would send his ^ power,'' and convart that 
'ere colored boy ; and so while they was shout- 
in' right down hard for me, one of our gals, 
Polly, I believe, gits what they calls ' the pow- 
er,' and they kind'a left me and went over to 
her; but some on 'cm stuck by me, but they 
didn't seem nigh so thick, and I was right glad 
of that, I tell ye, and as quick as I got a chance, 
I got out of the ring, and made tracks, and 
cut like a white head ; and when I got a goin' 
I didn't stop till I got down to the horses, and 
that was half a mile; and when I got there, 
the old woman that kept the tavern (she knew 
me) says, ' why, Peter ! what's the matter ?' 

" ' Matter,' says I 'matter enough; they got 
me into a ring up there, and scart me half to 
pieces, and I made off, I tell ye ; and if scare- 
in' folks makes 'em religious, I'll be a good 
Christian arter this as any on 'em, for they 
scart me like tarnation.'' Well, goin' home 
that night, the gals talked to me a good deal 
'bout religion. They used to be a good deal 



No more religious Jits very soon — tied up in the woods. 99 

more religiouser 'bout Camp meetin' times 
than any other times, and they'd try to git me 
to pray, and larn me how; and come up into 
my chamber arter the old folks had gone to 
bed, to tell me 'bout religion, and all that; and 
so, arter this meetin' I used to pray some, and 
when I went arter my cows, I'd git behind some 
big tree, and pray as well as I knew how, and 
so every time I got a chance, I'd keep it up, 
for six or seven months, and then I'd git all 
over it, and I could swear as bad as ever ; and 
by this time the gals had got kind'a cold, and 
didn't say much 'bout religion ; and that's the 
history of all my religion then. And arter this 
scare I tell on, I didn't have any more religious 
fits very soon. 

" Prayin' in the woods makes me think of 
bein' tied up there. Once master gits mad 
with me, cause I didn't plane cherry boards 
'nough, and he takes me out into the woods, 
and ties me up, 'bout dark, and says he, ' now 
stay there, you black devil, till mornin'.' Well, 
he\l ivhipped me rare afore this, and there 'twas 
dark as pitch, and the woods full of all kinds of 
live varmints, — a sore back, and enemost 
starved ; and I tell ye if I didn't scream jist Hke 
a good fellow, I'll give up. I hollered jist as 



100 Peter ichippea raw — Morehouse owned a still. 

loud as I could bawl, and there I stayed a good 
while, afeared of bein' eat up by varmints every 
minute. Finally, a man who hears me, comes 
up and says, * whose tliere ?' 

*' ' Peter,' says I. 

'"And what's the matter ?' 

*' ' Matter 'nough ! Master's whipped me 
raw, and enemost starved me, and tied me up, 
and is a goin' to keep me here all night.' 

" ' No, he ain't 'nother.' And at that he 
out with a big jack-knife, and cut the rope ; 
and I says, ' Thank'ee, Sir ;' and off he went. 
But I warn't much better off now, for I darn't 
go to the house, for there I should git it worse 
yit ; and so I went to the fence, so if any wild 
thing come arter me, I could be on the move ; 
and there I stood, and hollered, and bawled, 
and screamed, till I thought it must be near 
mornin' ; and finally, one of the gals comes 
out to untie me ; and if ever I was glad to see 
a woman's face, 'twas then ; but if there'd 
been fifty wild beasts within a mile on me, 
they'd been so scart by my bawlin', that they'd 
made tracks t'other way. 

" But up to 'bout this time, I used to have 
some sunny days, when I'd enjoy myself pretty 
v/ell. But I don't think that for five years, 



Morehouse gets to he a drunkard — ichips his " gals.^' lOl 

my wounds, of his make, fairly healed up, 
afore he tore 'em open agin' with an ox-goad, 
or cat-o'-nine-tails, and made 'em bleed agin'. 
But I've not told you the worst part of the 
story yit. Master got to be more savage than 
ever, and so cruel, that it did seem that I 
couldn't live with him. He got to be a dread- 
ful drunkard, and d?' owned a share in a 
still ; c^ and he used to keep a barrel of 
whiskey in his cellar all the time ; and he'd git 
up airly in the mornin', and take jist enough to 
make him cross ; and then 'twas ' here, nigger,* 
and ' there, nigger,' and ' every where, nigger,' 
at once. 

" He got to be sheriff, and then he drinked 
worse than ever ; and when he come home, 
he used to 'buse his wife and family, and beat 
the fust one he'd come to ; and I'd generally 
be on the move, if my eyes was open, when 
he got home, for he'd thrash me for nothin'. 
And I've seen him whip his gals arter they got 
big enough to be young icomen groicn, in his 
drunken fits ; and many a time I've run out, 
and stayed round the barn, for hours and hours, 
till I was nearly froze, from fear on him ; only, 
sometimes, when I knew he would thrash some- 
body, he was so savage, Pd stay in doors, and 
9* 



1 02 Peter sent to mill at nigfd — most froze. 

let his rage bile over on me, rather than on the 
gals ; for I couldn''t bear to have them beat so, 

"One day he tells me to git up the team, 
and go to drawin' wood to the door. I used 
to have nothin' to eat generally, but butter- 
milk and samp, except, now and then, a good 
bite from some of the gals or neighbors. The 
buttermilk used to be kept in an old-fashioned 
Dutch barrel-churn, till 'twas sour enough to 
make a pig squeal. Well, I drawed wood all 
day, and one of the coldest in winter, and eat 
nothin' but a basin of buttermilk in the morn- 
in', and so at night I goes to put out the team, 
and he says, ' Nigger, don't put out that team 
yit ; go and do your chores, and then put up 
ten bushels of wheat, and go to mill with it, 
and bring it back to-night ground, or /'// rvhip 
your guts out.'' 

*' Well, I hadn't had any dinner or supper, 
and it was a tremendous cold night ; but 
'Lecta puts into the sleigh one of these old- 
fashioned cloaks, with a hood on it, and says 
she, -Don't put it on till you git out of sight 
of the house, and here's two nut-cakes ; and, 
if I was in your place, I wouldn't let the horses 
creep, for it's awful cold, and I'm 'fraid you'll 
freeze.' 



Peter raums home from the mH}. 103 

** Well, I come to the mill, which was ten 
miles off, and told the miller my story, and 
what master said, with tears in my eyes ; for 
my spirit had got so kind'a broken by my hard 
lot, that I didn't seem to have anything manly 
about me. d?' Oh ! how you can degrade a 
man, if you'll only make him a slave ! ,^ 

" The miller says, * Peter, you shall have 
your grist as soon as possible.' And T set 
down by the furnace of coals, he kept by the 
water-wheel to keep it from freezin', and be- 
gun to roast kernels of wheat, for I was dread- 
ful hungry. He axed me to go in and eat; 
but I didn't want to. And so about twelve 
o'clock at night I got my grist, and starts for 
home, and gits there, and takes good care of 
every thing ; and then I begins to think about 
my own supper. The folks was all abed and 
asleep ; but I finds a basin of buttermilk and 
samp down in the chimney-corner, and I eats 
that ; and, if any thing, it makes me hungrier 
than I was afore ; and I sets down over the 
fire, and begins to think!* „x][) 

* Thought must ultimately prove the destruction 
of all oppression. Man is a being oj| intellect ; and 
if^his mind is not so benighted by ^rkness, or be- 



104 Ptter determived to hive justice. 

" I had had many a time of thinkin' afore, 
but I had never before felt master's cruelty as 
I feh it now. Here he was, a rich man ; and 
I had slaved myself to death for him, and been 
a thousand times more faithful in his business 
than I have ever been in my own ; and yit I must 
atai'vc. I felt the natiir'' of injustice inost keenly, 
and 1 bust into tears, for I felt kind'a broken- 
hearted and desolate. But I thought tears 
wouldnH ever do the ivork ! ^^ I axed myself 
if I warn't a man — a human bein' — one of 
God's crutters : and I riz up, detarmined to 
have justice ! .^JJ} ' And now,' says I, ' I may 



immbed by oppression, light will find its way into 
liis soul ; and his natural love of freedom, and his 
consciousness of liis inalienable rights, will show 
him the claims of justice, and the deep and awful 
guilt of slavery ; and then he will win his way to 
liberty, either by fight or blood. Humanity may 
be so chafed by repeated acts of cruelty and abuse, 
that any means will seem justifiable^ in the sight of 
the being who is to use some means for his release, 
if he ever ceases to groan. It is wisdom, then, to 
make the slave free while we can ; for, as sure as 
God made man for freedom, so sure he will ulti- 
mately be free, in one way or another. 



Br carts open the cupboard — catclied at it. 105 

as well die for an old sheep as a lamb ; and 
if there is any thing in this house that can 
satisfy my starvation, I'll have it, if it costs 
me my life.' 

" So I starts for the cupboard, and finds it 
locked, and I up with one of my feet and staves 
one of the panels through in the door, and there 
was every thing good to eat ; and so I eat till I 
got my Jill of beef, and pork, and cabbage, and 
turnips and 'taters ; and then I laid into the 
nicknacks, sich as pies, cakes, cheese and sich 
like. Well, arter I'd done and come out, and 
set down by the fire, master opens his bedroom 
door and sings out, ' away with you to bed, you 
black infernal nigger you, and I'll settle with 
you in the mornin', and he ripped out some 
oaths that fairly made my wool rise on eend, 
and then shets the door. Well, thinks I, if I 
am to die, and I expected he'd kill me in the 
mornin', I'll go the length of my rope, and die 
on a full stomach. So I goes to an old-fashion- 
ed tray of nut-cakes, and stuffs my bosom full 
on 'em, and carries 'em up stairs, and puts 'em 
in my old straw bed, and I knew nobody ever 
touched that but Pete Wheeler, and I crawled 
in and I had a plenty of time to think.c^^DO 
*' In the mornin' the old man gits up and 



106 Peter hung up in the barn naked. 

makes up a fire, a thing he hadn't done afore in 
all winter, and then comes to the head of the 
stairs, and calls for ' his nigger;' and I hears a 
crackin' in the fire, — and he'd cut a parcel 
of withes — walnut, of course, and run 'em 
into the ashes, and wythed the eends on 'em 
under his feet, and takes 'em along, — and a 
large rope, — and hits me a cut and sa3's, ' out 
to the barn with me, nigger ;' and so I follows 
him along. 

" Well, come to the barn, the first thing he 
swings the big doors open, and the north wind 
swept through like a harricane. ' Now,' says 
he, * nigger, pull off your coat ;' I did. 

*' ' Now pull off your jacket, nigger ;' I did. 

" ' Now off with your shirt, nigger;' I did. 

*' 'Now off with your pantaloons, nigger;' I 
did. 

" ' And be dam quick about it too.' 

" Arter I gits 'em off, he crosses my hands, 
and ties 'em together with one eend of a rope, 
and throws the other eend up overhead, across 
a beam, and then draws me up by my hands 
till I clears the floor two feet. He then crosses 
my feet jist so, and puts the rope through the 
bull-ring in the floor, and then pulls on the 
rope till I was drawn ti^ht — till my bones fairly ^ 



Whipped till blood isidesform on his heels. 107 

snapped, and ties it, and then leaves me in that 
doleful situation, and goes off to the house» 
and wanders round 'bout twenty minutes ; and 
there the north ^Yind sweeps through : oh ! how 
it stung; and there I hung and cried, and the 
tears fell and froze on my breast, and I wished 
I was dead. But back he comes, and says he, 
as he takes up a icitJie, ' now, you dam nig- 
ger, I'm a goin' to settle with you for breaking 
open the cupboard,' and he hits me four or five 
cuts with one and it broke ; and he catches up 
another, and he cut all ways, cross and back, 
and one way and then another, and he whip- 
ped me till the blood run down my legs, and 
froze in long blood isicles on the balls of my 
heels, as big as your thumb ! ! c::£0 • • ^^^^ I 
hollered and screamed till I was past hollerin' 
and twitchin', for when he begun, I hollered 
and twitched dreadfully ; and my hands was 
swelled till the blood settled under my nails and 
toes, and one of my feet hain't seen a well day 
since : and I cried, and the tears froze on my 
cheeks, and I had got almost blind, and so stiff 
I couldn't stir, and near dyin'. How long he 
whipped me I can't tell, for I got so, finally, I 
couldn't tell when he icas a whippin' on me ! ! ! 
' Oh ! Mr. L."- ,' " said Peter, as the tears 



108 Peter froze stiff. 



rolled down his wrinkled cheeks, while the pic- 
ture of that scene of blood again came up 

vividly before his mind, *' 'oh! Mr. L. , it 

was a sight to make any body that has got any 
feelin' weep^^ and there I hung, and he goes oiT 
to the house, and arter a while, I can't tell how 
long, he comes back with a tin cup full of brine, 
heat up, and says he, ' now nigger, I'm goin' 
to put this on to keep you from mortifyin,' and 
when it struck me, it brought me to my feelin', 
I tell ye ; and then, arter a while, he lets mo 
down and unties me, and goes off to the house. 

" Well, I couldn't stand up, and there the 
barn doors was open yit, and I was so stiff and 
lame, and froze, it seemed to me I couldn't 
move at all. But I sat down, and begins to 
rub my hands to get 'em to their feelin', so I 
could use 'em, and then my legs, and then my 
other parts, and my back I couldn't move, for 
'twas as stiff as a board, and I couldn't turn 
without turnin' my whole body; and I should 
think I was in that situation all of an hour, 
afore I could git my clothes on. 

" At last I got my shirt on, and it stuck fast 
to my back, and then my t'other clothes on, 
and then I gits up and shuts the barn doors, and 
waddles off to the house ; and he sees me a 



Se7it to tlie woods choppin*. 109 

comin', and hollers out ' nigger, go and do your 
chores, and off to the woods.' 

*' Well, I waddled round, and did my chores 
as well as I could, and then takes my axe and 
waddles off to the woods, through a deep snow. 
I gits there, and cuts down a large rock oak 
tree, and a good while I was 'bout it, tu, and 
my shirt still stuck fast to my back. I off with 
one eight foot cut, and then flung my axe down 
on the ground, and swore I'd die afore I cut 
another chip out of that log that day ; and I gets 
down and clears away the snow on the sunny 
side of the log, and sets down on the leaves, 
and a part of the time I sighed, and a part of 
the time I cried, and a part of the time I swore, 
and wished myself dead fifty times. 

" Well, settin' there I looked up and to my 

surprise I see a woman comin' towards me; 

and come to, it turned out to be my old friend 

'Lecta, and the first thing she says, when she 

comes up was, * ain't you 7nost dead, Peter .^' 

' Yis, and I wish I was quite, Miss 'Lecta ;' and 

she cries and I cries, and she sets down on the 

log and says, * Peter, ain't you hungry ? here's 

some victuals for you ;' and she had some warm 

coflfee in a coff'ee-pot, and some fried meat, and 

some bread, and pie, and cheese, and nut- 
10 



110 'Lecta a friend In ncea — CiUey and Graves. 

cakes ; and says she to me, ' Peter, eat it all up 
if you can.' 

A. "Why! Peter what would become of 
the world, if it warn't for the women ?" 

P. " Why, Sir, they'd eat each other up, and 
what they didn't eat, they'd kill. Then they 
keep the men back from doin' a great many 
ferocious things. Why, only 'tother day when 
that duel was fit in Washington, between 
Graves and Cilley, the papers say that Mrs. 
Graves, when she found out that the duel was 
a comin' on, tried to stop her husband, but he 
w^ouldn't hear to her, and so he went on, and 
killed poor Cilley, and made his wife a widder, 
and his children orphans. Now, only think 
how much misery would have been spared, if 
he'd only heard to his wife. 

" « Well,' says 'Lecta, ' I wouldn't strike 
another stroke to day.' And then to be un- 
discovered, she goes up to a neighbor's and 
stays there all day. So at night I goes home, 
and does my chores the best way I could. So 
I carries in a handful of wood, and master 
says, * how much wood you cut, nigger ?' ' I 
don't know, Sir.' ' One load ?' ' I don't know, 
Sir.' * How many trees you cut down !' * One, 
Sir.' 'You cut it up.?' *No, Sir.' 'Well, 



Master foams — Abers interferes. \\\ 

tell me how much you have cut, dam quick, 
tu.' * One \og off. Sir.' At that he catches 
up his cane, and throws on his great coat, and 
fetches a heavy oath, and starts off for the 
woods. I sets down in the corner, with a 
dreadful ticklin' round my heart ; and the chil- 
dren kept a lookin' out of the winder, to see 
him comin', and in he comes, frothy, he was 
so mad. Mistress says to him, ' possup,' 
which means, ' stop,' I 'spose, and then he 
went into the other room to supper. 

Finally, I crawls into my nest of rags, and 
I laid on my face all night, I couldn't lay any 
other way ; and next mornin' after tryin' 
several times, I made out to git up and go 
down, and do my chores. 

"Arter breakfast, Mr. Abers, his brother-in- 
law, come down, and says he, ' Gideon, what's 
your notion in torturin' this boy, so f If you 
want to kill him, why not take an axe and put 
him out of his misery ?' Master says, * is it 
any of your business V < Yis, Sir, 'tis my 
business, and the business of every human be- 
in' not to see you torture that boy so. You 
know he's faithful, and every body knows it, 
and a smarter boy you can't find any where 



112 Aholkion in a nut-shelL 



of his age.* Master then colours up, with 
wrath, and says, ' you or any body else, help 
yourself ! I'll do with my nigger as I please — 
he's my property, ^jy^ and I have a right to 
use my own property, as I please. You lie. 



* Here is Abolition, and its opposition in a nut- 
shell. Abolitionists, are those who claim that if 
a fellow-man is suffering, it is the business of his 
brother to help him, if possible, and in the best 
way he can. Accordingly, we lift up our voice 
against the abominations that are done in this 
land of chains, and whips, and heathenism, and 
slaves ! Who are our opposers, and revilers, and 
enemies 1 They are men who donH believe it to he 
their business, to interfere with the rights of the slave 
breeder, and slave buyer, and slaveholder, of the 
United States. Their creed will let them stand by 
and look at a brother bleeding, and groaning, and 
dying under a worse than high-way robbery, and 
yet 'twill bind their arms if they would extend a 
helping hand — 'twill stop their mouths if they wish 
to plead for the dumb. Oh ! my soul ! who that 
respects the claims of humanity, ain't ashamed to 
disgrace man so 1 What philanthropist who wants 
to see all men rise high in virtue, and happiness, 
ain't ashamed to hold one set of principles for me?i 



Property in man. \ 13 



that it's any of your business to interfere with 
my concerns.'* 

" ' Don't, you give me the He again,' says 
Abers, * or I'll give you what a Uar deserves.' 
Well, master give him the lie agin, and Abers 
took him by the nape of the neck and by the 
britch of his clothes, and flings him down on 
the floor, as you would a child, (for master 



in freedom^ and another for men in chains. What 
christian don't blush, to urge as an excuse for chil- 
ling and freezing his sympathies for the slave, " the 
legislation of the country forbids me to help a 
brother in distress." 

* The old corner stone of the whole edifice- — 
OC^ 'property in man. «>£][) This reply of the mas- 
ter, is just like the low, and vile swaggering and brag- 
ing of the South, that has so long intimidated the 
time-serving politician of the Norths with Southern 
principles^ and the dough-faced christian with in- 
fidel principles. There is something humiliating 
in the thought, that the South has been able al- 
ways to put down the rising spirit of freedom at the 
North, by brags and swagger ! ^^ Ever since 
the early days of the Revolution, when Adams and 
Hancock, and Ames, and Franklin, tried to get the 
South to wash her hands from the blood of oppres- 
{*ion, and be clean, bluster, and noise, and brags 
10* 



1 14 Southern brags and swagger. 

was a small man,) and he pounds him and 
kicks him and bruises him up 7?iost egregiously 
and then starts for the door and says, * come 
along with me, Peter, you are agoin' to be my 
boy a spell, and I'll see if this is your fault, or 
* master's' as you call him.' 



have crushed our efforts. And these same patriots, 
noble in every thing else, were dragooned into sub- 
mission, and this Moloch of the South was wor- 
shipped by the signers of the greatest instrument 
the world ever saw. And, as the compromise must 
go on^ an unholy alliance was formed between 
liberty and despotism ; and as the price paid for 
the temple's going up, tyranny has made a great 
niche in our temple of freedom, and there this 
strange god is worshipped by freemen. Oh ! God ! 
what blasphemy is here 1 tyranny and liberty wor- 
shipped together ! offerings made to the God of 
heaven, and the demon of oppression on the same 
altar ! 

Nullification lifted its brags and boasts, and 
swagger, and the North gave up her principles. 
And because the South has always succeeded, 
they already boast of victory over all the Abolition- 
ists of the North, and expect either that they have 
accomplished the work of crushing them, or that 
thej can do it just when they please. But the 



AhoVdionists men. 115 



" So I picks up my old hat, there warn't any 
crown in it, but swindle tow stuffed in, and 
goes along with him. I gits there, and Mrs. 
Abers, master's sister, says, ' my dear feller, 
ain't you almost dead ?' 

" So arter breakfast, for Mr. Abers had 



South will find that since the days of Jay, and 
Adams, liberty has grown strongs and when the 
great struggle comes, they will see that there are 
but two parties on the field, — a few slave-driving, 
slave-breeding tyrants covered with blood, un- 
righteously shed, at war with the combined powers 
of the world. The principles of Abolition, have enno- 
bled the human mind, and in all the world's history, 
cannot be found a body of men, who have endured 
so much obloquy and abuse, with so much unflinch- 
ing firmness, and manly fortitude, as the Abolition- 
ists. They are not to be awed by swagger, nor 
stopped by brags. No ! thanks to our Leader, the 
Lord Jesus Christ, who died to break every chain 
in creation, the work of human freedom must go 
forward ; and the South has no more power to 
stop the progress of light, and principles of liberty 
in this age, than the progress of the sun in the 
heavens. The great guiding principle of all the 
benevolence in the world is, to interfere to save a 
brother from distress and tyranny. — Every reform 



\\Q Freedom destined to fill the world, 

come down afore breakfast, and I sets down 
and eats with 'em, Mrs. Abers takes a leetle 
skillet, and warms some water, and then she 
tries to pull my shirt off, and it stuck fast to 
my back, and so she puts in some castile soap- 
suds all over my back, and I finally gits it off, 
and all the wool that had come off of my old 
homespun shirt of wool, and the Jiairs of this, 
sticks in the wounds, and so she takes and 
picks 'em all out, and washes me with a 
sponge very carefully, but oh ! how it hurt. — 
Arter this she takes a piece of fine cambric 
linen, and wets it in sweet ile, and lays it all 
over my back, and I felt like a new crutter ; 
and then I went to bed and slept a good while, 
and only got up at sundown to eat, and then 
to bed agin. So next mornin' she put on 
another jist like it, and I stayed there a fort- 



j-nust interfere with tyranny : 'twas so wuth Chris- 
tianity in its establishment — with the Reformation 
— with our Revolution — and shall be so — for Chris- 
tianity makes it man's business to interfere with 
every usurpation, and system of tyranny and in- 
vasion of human rights, until every yoke shall be 
broken in the entire dominions of God. 



Peter goes hack — master hadn't got over his bruises. 117 

night and had my ease, and lived on the fat of 
the land tu, I tell ye." 

A. " Didn't your master come after you, 
Peter ?" 

P. '' Oh ! no, Sir; he had all he could do 
to take care of the bruises Abers gin him. 
So one Monday mornin' he tells me I had 
better go home to master's. Well, I begins 
to cry, and says, ' I'll go, but master will whip 
me to death, next time.' * No he won't,' says 
Abers. *You go and do your chores, and be 
a good boy ; and I'll be over bim'bye, and see 
how you git along.' 

"Well, as soon as I got home, I opened the 
door, and mistress says, ' You come home 
agin', have you, you black son of a bitch ?' 

" * Yes, ma'am ; and how does master do?' 

" ' None of your business, you black skunk, 
you.' 

" So master finds I'd got home, and he 
sends one of the children out arter me ; and 
in I goes, and finds him on his bed yit. He 
speaks, ' You got home, have you ?' ' Yis, 
Sir: and how does master do?' 'Oh! I'm 
almost dead, Peter ;' and he spoke as mild as 
you do. And I says, ' I'm dreadful sorry for 
you ;' and I lied^ tu. So I pitied him, and pre- 



118 Morehouse attacks Peter with a pkeh-fork. 

tended to feel bad, and cry. And he says, * You 
must be a good boy, and take good care of 
the stock, till I gets well.' And so out I gees 
to the barn, and sung, and danced, and felt as 
tickled as a boy with a new whistle, to think 
master had got a good bruisin' as well as my- 
self, and I'd got on my taps first. 

" Well, for six months he was a kind of a 
decent man ; he'd speak kind'a pleasant — for 
he was so 'fraid of Abers, that he darn't do 
any other way. 

" Next winter followin', I was in the barn 
tinashin' ; and, as I stood with my back to the 
south door, a litter of leetle white pigs comes 
along, and goes to eatin' the karnels of wheat 
that fell over master's barn door sill ; and I 
was kind'a pleased to see sich leetle fellers, 
they always seemed so kind'a f tinny ; and the 
fust thing I knew, he struck me over the head 
with one of these 'ere old-fashioned pitch- 
forks, and I fell into the straw jist like a pluck 
in a pail of water. I gathers as quick as I 
could, arter I found out I was down, and he 
stood, with a fork in his hand, and swore if I 
stirred, he'd knock me down, and pin me to 
the floor. 

" I run out of the big door, and he arter 



Fdcr nearly kills his master in self-defence. 119 

me. with the fork in his hand ; and he run me 
into the snow, where 'twas deep, and got me 
to the fence, where I was up to my middle in 
snow, and couldn't move ; and he was a goin' 
to thrust arter me, and I hollers, and says, 
' Master, don^t stick that into me.' ' I tcill, 
you black devil.' I see there w^as no hope for 
me ; and I reaches out, and got hold of a 
stake, and as I took hold on it, as 'twas so 
ordered, it come out ; and, as he made a plunge 
alter me^ I struck arter him with this stake, 
and hit him right across the small of Ids hack ; 
and the way I did it warn't slow ; and he fell 
into the snow like a dead man ; and he lay 
there, and didn't stir, only one of his feet quiv- 
ered ; and I began to grow scart, for fear he 
was dyin' ; and I was tempted to run into the 
barn, and dash my head agin" a post, and dash 
my brains out ; and the longer I stood there, 
the worse I felt, for I knew for murder a body 
must be hung. 

"But bim'bye he begun to gasp, and gasp, 
and catch his breath ; and he did that three 
or four times ; and then the blood poured out 
of his mouth ; and he says, as soon as he could 
speak, ' Help me, Peter.' And I says, ' I 
slian't.' And he says agin', in a low voice, 



120 P^^r sent for by his master. 

* Oh ! help me !' I says, ' I'll see the devil 
have you, afore I'll help you, you old heathen, 
you.' And at that he draws a dreadful oath, 
that fairly made the snow melt ; and says 
agin', * Do you help me, you infernal cuss.' I 
uses the same words agin' ; and he tells me, 

* if you don't, I'll kill you as sure as ever I 
get into the house.' 

" Soon he stood clear up, and walked along 
by the fence, and drew himself by the rails to 
the house ; and I went to thrashin' agin'. 
Pretty soon 'Lecta comes out to the barn, and 
says, ' Peter, father wants to see you.' I says, 

* If he wants to see me mor'n I want to see 
him, he must come where I be ;' and I had a 
dreadful oath with it. And she speaks as mild 
as a blue-bird, and says, * Now, Peter, 'tend 
to me. You know I'm always good to you ; 
now if you don't mind, you'll lose a friend.' 
That touches my feelin's, and I starts for the 
house ; but I 'spected to be killed as sure as I 
stepped across the silL 

" Well, I entered the old cellar-kitchen ; 
and mistress locks the door, and puts the key 
in her side-pocket ; and master set in one chair, 
and his arm a restin' on another, as I set now, 
and he raises up, and takes down the rifle 



Peier locJced up in a room and shot at. 121 

that hung in the hooks over his head on a 
beam ; and / knew I teas a dead tnan, for I 
had loaded it a {q\\ days afore for a bear ; and 
says he, as he fetches it up to his face, and 
cocks it, and pints it right at my heart. * Now, 
you dam nigger, I'll eend your existence.' 

'* Now death stared me right in the face, 
and I knew I had nothin' to lose ; and the 
minute he aimed at me, I jumped at him like 
a streak, and run my head right atwixt his 
legs, and catched him, and flung him right 
over my head a tumblin', and I did it as quick 
as lightnin' ; and, as he fell, the rifle icent off, 
and bored two doors, and lodged in the wall 
of the bed-room ; and I flew and on to him, 
and clinched hold on his souse, and planted 
my knees in his belly, and jammed his old 
head up and down on the floor, and the way I 
did it warn't to be beat. 

" Well, by this time, old mistress come, 
and hit me a slap on the backsides, with one 
of these 'ere old-fashioned Dutch fire-slices, 
and it didn't set very asy 'nother ; but I still 
hung on to one ear, and fetched her a side- 
iDinder right across the bridge of her old nose, 
and she fell backwards, and out come the key 
of the door out of her pocket ; and 'Lecta got 



122 Peter lias a icondtrfid escape from death. 

the key, and run and opened the door — for 
the noise had brought the gals down Hke fury ; 
and I gin his old head one more mortal jam 
with both hands, and pummelled his old belly 
once more hard, and leaped out of the door, 
and put out for the barn. 

" At night I come back, and there was 
somethin' better for my supper than I had had 
since I lived there. I set down to eat ; and 
he come out into the kitchen with his cane, 
and cussed, and swore, and ripped, and tore ; 
and I says, ' Master, you may cuss and swear 
as much as you please ; but on the peril of 
your life, don't you lay a finger on me ;' and 
there was a big old-fashioned butcher-knife 
lay on the table, and I says to him, ' Just as 
sure as you do, I'll run that butcher-knife 
through you, and clinch it.' I had the worst 
oath I ever took in all my life, and spoke so 
savage, that I fairly scart him. 

*' I told him to give me a paper to look a 
new master ; for you see, there w^as a law, 
that if a slave, in them days, wanted to change 
masters, on account of cruelty, that his old 
master must give him a paper, and he could 
git a new one, if he could find a man that 
would buy him. At fust he said he would give 



Peter swears to he free, and asks God for help. 123 

me a paper in the niornin', but right off he 
says, ' No, I swear I won't ; Fll have the plea- 
sure of killin'' on you myself T ^^ 

*' So he cussed, and finally, went into the 
other room ; and the gals says, < Peter, now 
is your time; stick to him, and you'll either 
make it better or worse for you.' 

" So I goes off to bed, and takes with me a 
walnut flail swingle ; and I crawled into my 
nest of rags, and lay on my elbow all night ; 
and if a rat or a mouse stirred, I trembled, 
for I expected every minute he'd be a comin' 
up with a rifle to shoot me ; and I didn't sleep 
a wink all that night. And I swore to Al- 
mighty God, that the fust time I got a chance 
I'd clear from his reach ; and I prayed to the 
God of freedom to help me get free." 

A. " Well, Peter, it's late now, and we'll 
leave that part of the story for another chap- 
ter." * 



* All this is a true picture of slavery and op- 
pression, all over the globe. Man is not fit to pos- 
sess irresponsible power — God never designed it ; 
and every experiment on earth has proved the aw- 
ful consequence of perverting God's design. I 
know it will be said by almost exery reader, who 



124 Slavery always the same. 

closes this chapter, that this was an isohited and 
peculiar case ; but I know, from observation, that 
there is nothing at all peculiar in it to the system 
of slavery ; and when the judgment day shall come, 
and the history of every slaveholder is opened, in 
letters of fire, upon the gaze of the whole universe, 
that there will be something peculiarly dark and 
awful in every chapter of oppression which the 
universe shall see unfolded. And if I could quote 
but one text of God's Bible, in the ear of every 
slaveholder in creation, it would be that astound- 
ing assertion — " When he maketh inquisition for 
blood he remembereth them." 



The crisis reached. 125 



CHAPTER V. 

Peter's master prosecitted for abusing him, and fined $500, 
and put under a bond of $2000 for good behavior — Peter 
for a long time has a plan for running away, and the girls 
help him in it — " the big eclipse of 1806" — Peter starts at 
night to run away, and the girls carry hnn ten miles on his 
road — the parting scene — travels all night, and next day 
sleeps in a hollow log in the woods — accosted by a man on 
the Skoneateles bridge — sleeps in a barn — is discovered — 
two painters on the road — discovered and pursued — fright- 
ened by a little girl — encounter with " two black gentlemen 
with a white ring round their necks" — " Ingens" chase him 
— " Utica quite a thrifty little place" — hires out nine days — 
Little Falls — hires out on a boat to go to " Snackady" — 
makes three trips — is discovered by Morehouse ^r^ — the 
women help him to escape to Albany — hires out on Trues- 
dell's sloop — meets master in the street — goes to New York 
— a reward of $100 offered for him — Capt. comes to take 
him back to his master, for "one hundred dollars don't grow 
on every bush" — "feels distressedly" — but Capt. Truesdell 
promises to protect him, " as long as grass grows and water 
runs — he follows the river. 

Author. "Good evening, Peter, — how do 
you do to nig-ht r" 

Peter. " Very well ; and how's the Donii- 
ne?" 

11* 



126 Death, murder, orfligU. 

A. *' Pretty well. Take a chair and go ahead 
with your story." 

P. " My mind had been made up for years 
to git out of my trouble, — but I thought I'd wait 
till spring afore I started. Things had got to 
sich a state, I see I must either stay and be 
killed myself, or kill master, or run away ; and 
I thought 'twould be the best course to run 
away ; and I wanted good travel! in', and I 
concluded I'd wait till the movin' was good. 
In the meantime. Master prosecuted Abers for 
assaulting him in his own house, and Abers 
paid the damages ; I don't know how much; 
and then Abers prosecuted master afore the 
same court, for abusin' me, on behalf of the 
state. His whole family was brought forward 
and sworn, and testified agin' him, and the 
trial lasted two days. I was brought forward, 
and had my shirt took off, to show the scars in 
my meat ; and the judge says, ' Peter, how long 
did he whip you in the barn ?' And I up and told 
him the story as straight as I could. Then 
the lawyers made their pleas on both sides, and 
the case was submitted to the j ury, and out 
they went, and stayed half an hour, and brought 
in a verdict of abuse, even unto murder intent. 
The judge says, 'how so?' The foreman on 



Morehouse prosecuted and fined $500 for abusing Peter. 127 

the jury says, ' because he thrice attempted to 
kill him with a rifle.' 

" Well, his sentence finally was, to pay five 
hundred dollars damages, or to go to jail till he 
did ; and be put under bonds of two thousand 
dollars for good behavior in future. The judge 
gin him half an hour to decide in ; and he sot 
and sot till his time was up; and then the 
judge told the sheriff to take him to jail, and 
he went to get the hand-cuffs, and put 'em on 
to master's hands; and the judge says, ^ screw 
^em tight ;^ for you see ' master hadn't treated 
the court v.ith proper respect,' the judge said. 
I should think he had the cuffs on ten minutes, 
and then he says, ' I'll pay the money ;' and 
the sheriff off with the cuffs, and master out 
with his pocket-book, and counted out the 
money to the sheriff, and then he gin bail, and 
so the matter ended. 

"The judge come to me and says, 'now, 
Peter, do you be faithful, and if you are abused 
come to me, and I'll take care of it. 

" Well, all went home, and arter that mas- 
ter behaved himself pretty decent towards me, 
only the gals said he used to say, ' I wish I'd 
killed the dam nigger, and then I shouldn't 
have this five hundred dollars to pay.' 



128 -^^^ ready to run — big eclipse o/ 1806. 

*' My whole fare was now better, (t?^ but I 
still considered myself a slave, c^ and that 
galled my feelin's, and I determined I'd be 
free, or die in the cause; for you see, by 
this time, I'd larned more of the rights of hu- 
man naiur\ and I felt that I was a man! ! 

" I had this in contemplation all of three or 
four years afore I run, and I swore a heap 
'bout it tu. The gals had made me a new suit, 
and had it ready for runnin' a year afore. The 
gals paid for it, and kept it secret; and so a 
woman can keep a secret, arter all ; and I had 
twenty-one dollars, in specie, that I'd been a 
gettin' for five years, by little and Uttle, fishin' 
and chorin', and catchin' muskrats, that I 
kept from master; and I made 'Lecta my 
banker ; and every copper and sixpence I got 
I put into her hand, and now I'd got things 
ready for a start. 

"Well, the big eclipse, as they called it, 
come on the 16th of June, 1806, I beheve, and 
we had curious times, I tell ye. I was in the 
lot a hoein' corn, and it begun to grow dark, 
right in the day time, and the birds and whip- 
poor-wills begun to sing, jist as in the evenin', 
and the hens run to the roost, and I come to 
the house; and the folks had smoked-glass 



Tliegals at midnight help Peter to escape. 129 

lookin' through at the sun, and I axed 'em 
' what's the matter f' and they said ' the moon 
is atwixt us and the sun.' 

"Well, thinks says I, 'that's rale curious.' 
Master looked at it once, and then sot down 
and groaned, and fetched some very heavy 
sighs, and turned pale, and looked solemn ; and 
there was two or three old Dutch women 'round 
there that looked distracted ; they hollered and 
screamed and took on terrihly, and thought 
the world was a comin' to an eend. Well, I 
didn't find out the secret of that eclipse, till a 
sea captain told me, long arter this. I b'lieve 
this eclipse happened on Tuesday ; and next 
Sunday night, atwixt twelve and one o'clock, I 
started, and detarmined that if ever I went 
back to Gideon Morehouse's, Fdgo a dead man, 

" We all went to bed as usual, but not to 
sleep ; and so, 'bout twelve 'clock, I went out as 
still as I could, and tackled up the old horse and 
wagon, and oh ! how I felt. I was kind'a glad 
and kind'a sorry, and my heart patted agin my 
ribs hard, and I sweat till my old shirt was as 
wet as sock. So I hitched the horse away 
from the house, and went in and told the gals, 
and I fetched out my knapsack that had my 
new clothes in it, and all on us went out and 



130 T/tc partina — resolution — sleeps in a holloit tree, 

got in and started off. Oh ! I tell ye, the horse 
didn't creep ; and the gals begins to talk to me 
and say, ' now, Peter, you must be honest and 
true, and faithful to every body, and that's the 
way you'll gain friends;' and 'Lecta says, 'if 
you work for anybody, be careful to please the 
women folks, and if the women are on your 
side, you'll git along well enough.' 

"Well, we drove ten miles, and come to a 
gate, and 'twouldn't do for them to go through, 
and so there we parted ; and they told me to 
die afore I got catched, — and if I did, not to 
brhis; ''em out I told them I'd die five times 
over afore I'd fetch 'em out ; and so 'Lecta 
took me by the hand and kissed me on the 
dieek, and I kissed her on the hand, for I 
thought her face warn't no place for me : and 
then she squeezes my hand, and says, ' God 
bless you, Peter;' and Polly did the same, and 
there was some cryin' on both sides. So I 
helped 'em off, and as we parted, each one 
gin me a handsome half-dollar, and I kept 
one on 'em a good many years ; and, finally, I 
gin it to my sweet-heart in Santa Cruz, and I 
guess she's got it yit. 

" I starts on my journey with a heavy heart, 
Fobbin' and cryin', for I begun to cry as soon 



Sleeps in a barn. 131 

as I got out of the wagon. I guess I cried all 
of three hours afore mornin', and I felt so dis- 
Iressedly 'bout leavin' the gals I almost 
wished myself back ; but I'd launched out, and 
I warn't agoin' back alive. 

"I travelled till daylight, and then, to be 
undiscovered, I took to the woods, and stayed 
there all day, a»d eat the food I took along in 
the knapsack ; and a dreadful thunder-storm 
come, and I crawled, feet first, into a fell hol- 
ler old tree, and pulled in my knapsack for a 
pillar, and had a good sleep; only a part of the 
time I cried, and when I come out I was very 
dry, and T lays down and drinks a bellyful of 
water out of a place made by a crutter's track, 
and filled by the rain, and on I went till I come 
to Skaneatales Bridge ; and 'twas now dark, 
and when I got into the middle, a man comes 
up and says 'good evenin', Peter.' Well, I 
stood and says nothin', only I expected my 
doom was sealed. He says ' you needn't be 
scart, Peter,' and come to, it was a black man 
I'd known, and he takes me into his house in 
the back room, and gin me a good meal. You 
see I'd seen him a good many times agoin' by 
there with a team. Arter supper his wife gin 
me a pair of stockins' and half a dollar, and he 



13*2 Sleeps in a ham— fight between two painters. 

gin me half a loaf of wheat bread, and a hunk 
of biled bacon, and a silver dollar, and off I 
started, with a kind of a light heart. I travels 
all that night till daylight, and grew tired and 
sleepy ; and on the right side of the road I see 
a barn, and so I goes in and lies down on the 
hay, and I'd no sooner struck the mow than I 
fell asleep. When I woke up the sun was up 
three hours, and some men were goin' into the 
field with a team, and that 'woke me up. I 
looks for a chance to clear, and I sees a piece 
of woods off about half a mile, and I gits oft'; 
so the barn hid me from 'em, and I lays my 
course for these woods, and jist by 'em was a 
large piece of wheat, and I gits in and was so 
hid I stays there all day ; and a part of the time 
I cried, and sat down, and stood up, and 
whistled, and all that, and it come night, I 
started out, and travelled till about midnight, 
and had a plenty to eat yit. 

" Well, the moon shone bright, and I was 
travellin' on between two high hills, and the 
fust thing I hears was the screech of a pain- 
ter ; and if you'd been there, I guess you'd 
thought the black boy had turned white. Well, 
on the other hill was an answer to this one ; 
and I travelled on, and every now and then, I 



Travels by niglit — discovered — lies — is pursued. 1^3 

beard one holler and t'other answer, but I kept 
on the move ; and when the moon come out 
from a cloud it struck on the hill, and I see 
one on 'em, and bim'bye, both on 'em got to- 
gether, and sich a time I never see atwixt two 
live things. Their screeches fairly went through 
me. Not long arter I come up to a house, 
and bein' very dry, I turned into the gate to 
git a drink of water, and I drawled up some, 
and a big black dog come plungin' out, and in 
a minute a light was struck up, and out come 
a man, and hollered to his dog to ' git out ;' 
and he says to me, ' Good night. Sir : you 
travel late.' ' Yis, Sir.' ' What's the rea- 
son V And I had a he all ready, cut and dried. 
* 3Iy mother lies at the pint of death in the 
city of New York, and I'm a hastenin' down 
to see her, to git there if I can afore she dies.' 
He rather insisted on my comin' in, but I de- 
clined, and bid him a good night, and passed 
on my way. I left the road for fear this man 
might think I was a run-away, and so pursue 
me ; and on I went to the \voods. I hadn't 
got fur afore I hears a horse's hoofs clatterin' 
along the road ; and thinks, says I, ' I'm 
ahead of you, now, my sweet feller — Pm in 
the busk.' And so I put on ; and by daylight 



134 P^^'*' treated well. 

I thought I was fur enough off, and I could 
travel a heap faster in the road, so I put for 
the road ; and nothin' troubled me till ten 
o'clock. And as I come along to an old log- 
house, a little gal come out, and hollers, ' Run, 
nigger, run, they're arter ye ; you're a rim- 
away, I know.' I tell you it struck me with 
surprise, to think how she knew I was a run- 
away. I says nothin', but she says the same 
thing agin' ; and on I goes till I come to a turn 
in the road where I was hid, and I patted the 
sand nicely for a spell I tell ye. When I got 
along a while, I run into a bunch of white 
pines ; and as I slipped along, I come across 
one of these 'ere black gentlemen with a white 
ring round his neck, and he riz up and seemed 
detarmined to have a battle with me. Well, 
1 closed in with him, and dispersed him quick, 
with a club ; and in about four rods I met an- 
other, and I dispersed him in short order ; and 
got out into the road, and travelled till night ; 
and come to a gate, and axed the man if I 
might sfay zvith him. An Ingen man kept the 
gate, and a kind of a tavern, tu ; and he says, 
* yis ;' and I stayed, and was treated ivell, and 
not a question axed. Well, I axed him how fur 
'twas to a village, and he says, * six miles to 



Meets twenty strappin' Ingens — one chases him. 135 

Oneida village,' and says he, ' what be you, 
an Ingen, or a nigger ?' I says, ' I guess I'm 
a kind of a mix :' and he put his hand on to 
my head, and says, ' well, I guess you've got 
some nigger blood in ye, I guess I shan't charge 
you but half price,' and so off I starts. Well, 
soon I come to a parcel of blackberry bushes, 
and out come an Ingen squaw, and says, 
* sago ;' and I answers, ' sagole,' that's a kind 
of a ' how de.' And all along in the bushes was 
young Ingens, as thick as toads arter a shower, 
and I was so scart to think what I'd meet next, 
my hair fairly riz on eend ; and in a minute, 
right afore me I see a comin' about twenty big, 
trim, strappin' Ingens, with their rifles, and 
tomahaAvks, and scalpin' knives, and then I 
wished I was back in master's old kitchen, for 
I thought they was arter me ; and I put out 
and run, and a tall Ingen arter me to scare 
me, and I run my prettiest for about fifty 
rods, and then I stubbled my toe agin a stone, 
and fell my length, heels over head. But, I 
up and started agin, and then the Ingen stop- 
ped, and oh ! sich a yelp as he gin, and all on 
'em answered him, and off he went and left 
me, and that made me feel better than bein' in 
old master's kitchen. 



136 Yankee folks — Utica a thrifty little place. 

" I travels on and comes to a tavern, and 
got some breakfast of fresh salmon, and had 
a talk with the landlord's darter, and she was 
half Ingen, for her father had married an Ingen 
woman ; and while I was there, up come four 
big Ingens arter whiskey, and they had no 
money, and so they left a bunch of skins in 
pawn till they come back. So I paid him 
thirty-seven and a half cents and come on. 
The next time I stopped at a cake and beer 
shop, and I told the old woman sich a pitiful 
story, that she gin me all I'd bought and a card 
of gingerbread to boot, and I come on rejoicin'. 
They was Yankee folks, and, say what you 
will, the Yankee folks are fine fellers where 
ever you meet 'em. 

" Next place 1 passed was Utica, which was 
quite a thrifty little place ; but I didn't stop 
there ; and on a little I got a ride with a team- 
ster down twenty miles, to a place about six 
miles west of Little Falls, and there I put up 
with a man, and he hired me to help him work 
nine days and a half, and gin me a dollar a 
day, and paid me the silver, and he owned a 
black boy by the name of Toney. We called 
him Tone, and they did abuse him bad enough, 
poor feller ! he was all scars from head to foot, 



Journey doum to Snackady— boats it. ] 37 

and I slept with him, and he showed me where 
they'd cut him to pieces with a cat-o'-nine-tails. 
And it did seem, to look at him, as though he 
must have been cut up into mince meat, al- 
most ! !«-£:Q ! ! 

" Well, I left him, and got down about two 
miles on my journey, and there lay a Durham 
boat, aground in the Mohawk River ; and a 
man aboard hollered to me, to come down, and 
he axed me if I didn't want to icork mi/ passage 
down to Snackady. I says, * yis, if ymCll pay 
me for it! P You see I felt very independent 
jist now, for I begun to feel my oats a leetle ; 
and so he agreed to give me twenty shillin's if 
I would, and so I agreed tu, and went aboard, 
and glad enough tu of sich a fat chance of git- 
tin' along. 

" We come to ' the Falls,' and they was a 
great curiosity I tell ye ; and we got our boat 
down 'em, through a canal dug round 'em by 
five or six locks. Oh ! them falls was a jfine 
sight — the water a thunderin' along all foam. 
Well, we had good times a goin' down, and 
come to Snackady, the man wanted to hire 
me to go trips with him up and down from 
Utica, and offered me ten dollars a trip. So 
we got a load of dry goods and groceries, and 
13* 



138 Morehouse and the SJteriff enter the house where Peter is, 

goes back for Utica, and gits there Saturday 
night. The captain of the boat was John 
Miinson, and I made three trips with him, and 
calculated to have made the fourth, but some- 
thin' turned up that warn't so agreeable. I 
stayed there Sunday, and Sunday evenin' 
about seven o'clock, I goes up on the hill with 
one of the hands, to see some of our colour, 
and gits back arter a roustin' time about ten 
o'clock, and as soon as I enters the house, 
Mrs. Munson says, ' why lord-a-massa Peter, 
your master has been here arter you, and what 
shall we do ?' And I was so thunderstruck, I 
didn't know what to say, or do. And says 
she, ' you must make your escape the best way 
you can.' 

" I goes up stairs and gathers up my clothes, 
and the women folks comes up tu, and while 
we was there preparin' my escape, old master 
and the sheriff comes in below ! and he says 
to Munson, who lay on the bed, ' I'm a goin' 
to sarch your house for my nigger ;' and Mun- 
son rises up and says, ' what the devil do you 
mean ? away with you out of my house. I 
knows nothin' about your nigger, nor am I 
your nigger's keeper — besides, 'afore you sarch 
my house, you've got to bring a legal sarch- 



Escapes — travels by niglU to Albany. 139 

warrant, and now show it or out of my house, 
or you'll catch my trotters into your starn, 
quick tu.' 

" Well, I darn't listen to hear any thing 
more, but all a tremblin', says I to the women, 
* what in the name of distraction shall I do f 

" Mrs. Munson says, ' I'll go down and 
swing round the well-sweep, and you jump on, 
and down head-foremost.' I flings out my 
bundle, and up comes the well-sweep, and I 
hopped on, and down I went head foremost, 
jist Uke a cat, and put out for the river ; and I 
found Mrs. Munson there with my clothes, 
for she'd took 'em as soon as she could, and 
put out with 'em for the river. *And now 
Peter,' says she ' do you make the best of your 
way down to Albany, and travel till you git 
there, and don't you git catched ; and so I off, 
arter thankin' Mrs. Munson, and I wanted to 
thank Mr. Munson tu, for his management, 
but I couldn't spend the time, and I moved 
some tu ; and I got down to Albany by one 
o'clock at night, and there lay a sloop right 
agin' the wharf, alongside the old stage tav- 
ern ; and as I was a wanderin' along by it, 
there seemed to be a colored man standin' on 
deck, 'bout fifty years old, and his head was 



140 Finds protection on board a vessel iyi the river. 

most as white as flax, and says he as he hails 
me, * where you travellin' tii, my son ?' I says, 
* I'm bound for New York,' and I out with my 
old lie agin 'bout my mother. You see that 
lie was like some minister's sarmints, that 
goes round the country and preaches the same 
old sarmint till it's threadbare — but it sarved 
my turn. * Come aboard my son, and take 
some refreshments ;' and so I goes down into 
the cabin, and I feels kind'a guilty, sorry, and 
hungry, and my feet was sore, for I'd walked 
bare-foot from Snackady ; and if you did but 
know it, it was a dreadful sandy road, but 
I wanted no shoes 'bout me that night. Well, 
pretty soon my meal was ready, and I had a 
good cup of coffee, and ham, and eggs, and 
arter that, says he, * now lay down in my 
berth ;' and I laid down, and in two minutes 
I got fast to sleep, and the first I knew old 
master had me by the nape of the neck, and 
called for some one to help him, and he had a 
big chain, and he begins to bind me and I 
sings out, ' murder,' as loud as I could scream, 
and the old gentleman comes to the berth, and 
says, ' what's the matter my son ?' and I woke 
np, and 'twas a dreamy and I was so weak I 
couldn't hardly speak, and I was cryin' and 



Pclefs dream, 141 



my shirt was as wet as a drownded rat ^ and 
the old man says, ' why, what's the matter, 
Peter ? you're as w^iite as a sheet.' ' I says, 
* nothin' only a dream ;' and says he, * try to 
git some sleep my son, nobody shan't hurt you.' 
And so I catches kind' a cat-naps, and then 
the old man would chase me, and I run into 
the woods; and three or four men was arter me 
on white horses, and I run into a muddy slough, 
and jumped from bog to bog, and slump into 
my knees in the mud, and I'd worry and worry 
to git through, and at last I did ; and then I had 
to cross a river to git out of their way, and I 
swum across it, and it was a pure crystal 
stream, and I could see gold stones and little 
fish on the bottom. Well, I got to the bank 
and sets down, and they couldn't git to me, and 
I had a good quiet sleep. Finally, the old man 
comes to me, and says, ' come, my son, git up 
and eat some breakfast. And I up, and the 
sun was an hour high, and more tu. I washes 
me, and we had some stewed eels and coffee ; 
and we eat alone, for all the hands and captain 
was a spendin' the night among their friends 
ashore. And the old man begins to question 
me out whether I warn't a run-away, and I 
rother denied it in the first place ; and he says, 



142 Hires out aboard Captain TruesdeWs vessel. 

* you needn't be afeard of me. You're a run- 
away, and if you'll tell me your story, I'll help 
you.' So I up and told him my whole story, 
and he says, ' I know'd you was a run-away 
when you come aboard last night, for I was once 
a slave myself, and now arter breakfast you go 
with me, and I'll show you a good safe place 
to go and be a cook.' 

" So we walked along on the dock, and says 
he, ' there comes the Samson, Captain John 
Truesdell, I guess he wants you, for I under- 
stood his cook left him in Troy.' 

" So the Samson rounded up nigh our'n, 
and the captain jumps ashore, and says he, 

* boy do you want a berth ?' and I touches my 
hat, and says, * yis. Sir.' And he says, * can 
you roast, bake, and bile, &c. f I says, 'I 
guess so.' ' Can you reef a line of veal, and 
cook a taterf 'Yis, Sir, all that.' 'Well, 
you are jist the boy I want ; ' what do you ask 
a month ?' I says, ' I don't know :' but I'd a 
gone with him if he hadn't agin me a skinned 
sixpence a month. Well, he looks at me, and 
slaps me on the shoulder, and says he, 'you 
look like a square-built clever feller, — I'll give 
you eight dollars a month.' 

*'This colored man looks at me and shakes 



Master again — sails doicn the river. \ 43 

his head, and holds up all hands, and fingers, 
and thumbs, and that's ten you know. So I 
axed him ten dollars a month. And says he, 
* I'll give it ;' and my heart jumps up into my 
mouth. And he claps his hand into his pocket, 
and took out three dollars, and says he, ' now 
go up to the market and git two quarters veal, 
and six shillin' loaves of bread, and here's the 
market basket.' Well, I thought it kind'a 
strange that he should trust me, cause I was 
a stranger ; but I found out arter this, a follow- 
in' the seas, that it was the natur' of sailors to 
be trusty. Well, I off to the market, and I 
goes up State-street and looked across on 
'tother side, and who should I see but Master 
and the Sheriff, a comin' down ; so I pulls my 
tarpaulin hat over my eyes, for I'd got all rig- 
ged out with a sailor suit on the Mohawk, and 
I spurs up, and the grass didn't grow under 
my feet any nother. I does my business, and 
hastens back as fast as possible, and got 
aboard, and the captain made loose, and bore 
away into the wind, and made all fast ; and 
the sails filled, and down the river we went 
like a bird. A stiff breeze aft, and I was on 
deck, for I wanted to see, and the captain 
comes along and says, * boy, you'd better be- 



X44 -^w" aground — distressing appreJiensions. 

low,' and down I went. Well, we run under 
that breeze down to the overslaugh, and got 
aground, and then my joy was turned into 
sorrow. The captain says to me, ' boy, you 
keep ship while I and the hands go back and 
git a lighter, or we shan't git off in a week ; 
and he takes all hands into the jolly boat and 
starts for the city again. Arter they'd gone I 
wanders up and down in the ship, and cried, 
and thought this runnin' aground was all done 
a purpose to catch me ; and 1 goes down into 
the cabin and ties all my clothes up in a snug 
bundle, and goes into the aft cabin, and opens 
the larboard window, and made up my mind 
that if I see any body come that looked suspici- 
ous, I'd take to the water. 

Well, afore long, I see the jolly boat a 
comin' down the river, and every time the 
oars struck she almost riz out of the water. 
Three men on a side and the captain sot steer- 
in' and as she draws nic^her and ni^Tf-her I 
draws myself into a smaller compass, for I 
was afeard master was aboard that boat. Well, 
she comes alongside, but thanks to God no 
master in that boat. 

" The captain comes on deck and says with 



Gideon Morehouse goes aboard Peters ship. 145 



a smile, ' Peter, you may git dinner now.* So 
I goes and gits a good dinner, for I understood 
cookin' pretty well, and they eats, and I tu, 
and then I clears off the table, and washes the 
dishes, and sweeps the cabin, and goes on deck. 
And sees a lighter comin' down the river, and 
she rounded up and come alongside, and we 
made fast, and up hatches and took out the 
wheat, and worked till evenin', and then she 
swung off; and by mornin' we'd got all the 
freight aboard, and we discharged the lighter 
and highted all sail, and the wind was strong 
aft, and we lowered sail no more till we landed 
in New York, and that was the next day at 
evenin'. 

*'Well, the second night arter this, the cap- 



* What a cheerful air hnnjs^s around the path of 
liberty ! I was once reading this page to a warm- 
hearted and benevolent Abolitionist, and when I 
came to this speech of the captain, he burst into 
tears as he exclaimed, " Oh, wliat a change in that 
boy's existence ! It seems to me that such kindness 
must almost have broken his heart. Oh ! a man 
must have a bad heart not to desire to see every 
yoke broken, and all the oppressed go free." 
13 



1 46 Gideon Morehouse goes aboard Peter's ship. 

tain come down into the cabin, and says he, 
* Peter I've got a story for you. ' Well,' says 
I, *I wants to hear it, Sir.' * Well last night 
there was a small man from Cayuga county, 
by the name of Gideon Morehouse ,^ come 
aboard my sloop, and says, "you've got my 
nigger concealed aboard your ship, and I've 
got authority to sarch your vessel; * and he 
sarched my vessel and every body and every- 
thing in it, and by good luck ^oa was ashore, 
or he'd a had you ; for you must be the boy 
by description.' 

" Now I was on the poise whether to tell 
the truth or not ; but I was rather constrained 
to lie; but the captain says, 'tell me the 
truth, Peter, for t'will be better for you in the 
eend ; so I u.p and told him my whole story, 
as straight as a compass, and long as a string. 

" ' Weir says he, ' be a good boy, and I'll 
take care on you.' So we stayed in New York 
a few days, and back to Albany, and started 
for New York agin and we had fourteen pret- 
ty genteel passengers, and the captain says, 
' now Peter be very attentive to 'em and you'll 
git a good many presents from 'em.' ' So I 
cleaned their boots and waited on 'em, and 
when I ffot to York I carried their baggage 



$100 reward offered for Peter— prepares to go hack. 147 

round the city, and when I got to the sloop I 
counted my money, and had six dollars fifty 
cents, jist for bein' polite, and it's jist as easy 
to be polite as any way. 

" Well, the next mornin' the captain comes 
to me about daylight, and hollers, * up nig, 
there's a present for you on deck,' 

" So I hops up in great haste and there 
was stuck on the sign of the vessel, an adver- 
tisement, and ' reward of one hundred dollars, 
and all charges paid for catchin' a large bull- 
eyed Negro, &c.' The captain reads that to 
me, and says very seriously, ' Peter that's a 
great reward. You run dow^n in the cabin and 
git your breakfast, I must have that hundred 
dollars ; for one hundred dollars don't grow on 
every bush.' 

" Well, I started and w^ent down, a sobbin' 
and cryin' to get breakfast, and calls the cap- 
tain down to eat, and he sets down and says he, 
*Peter ain't you agoin' to set down and eat 
somethin' ? it will be the last breakfast you'll 
eat with us.' 

" I says with a very heavy heart, ' no Sir, I 
wants no breakfast.' Arter breakfast says he, 
'now clear off the table, and do up all your 
things nice and scour your brasses, so that 



X48 Captain thinks he must have the reward. 

when I get another cook he shan't say you was 
a dirty feller.' So I goes and obeys all his or- 
ders, and I shed some tears tu, I tell ye ; and 
then I set down and had a regular-built cryin' 
spell, and then the captain comes down and 
says, ' you done all your work up nicely ?' 
* Yis Sir,' ' well, now go and tie up all your 
clothes.' So I did, and I cried louder than 
ever about it, and he says, ' I guess you han't 
got 'em all have ye ?' So he unties my bun- 
dle, and takes all on 'em out one by one, and 
lays 'em in the berth, and I cried so you could 
hear me to the forecastle ; and finally he turns 
to me a pleasant look and says, ' Peter put up 
your clothes ; I've no idea of takin' you back, 
I've done this only to try you ; and now I tell 
5'ou on the honor of a man, as long as you stay 
with me, and be as faithful as you have been, 
nobody shall take you away from me alive ; 
and then I cries ten times worse than ever, I 
loved the captain so hard. But a mountain 
rolled off on me, for I tell you to be took right 
away in the bloom of hberty, arter I'd toiled so 
hard to git it, and then have all my hopes 
crushed in a minute, I tell you for awhile I 
had mor'n I could waller under. But when I 
got acquainted with the captain, I found him a 



Glorious nature of liberty. £49 

rale abolitionist, for he'd fight for a black man 
any time, and Q^ Oh ! how he did hate sla- 
very : c:^ but then he kind'a loved to run on 
a body, and then make 'em feel good agin, and 
he was always a cuttin' up some sich caper as 
this ; but he w as a noble man and I love him 
yit. 

" Now I felt that I was raly free ,jy^ al- 
though I knew Morehouse was a lurkin' round 
arter me : and arter this I called no man master, 
but I knew how to treat my betters. I now 
begun to d?' feel somethin' like a man, ._£]0 
and the dignity of a human heiiH begun to 
creep over me, and I enjoyed my liberty when 
C got it, I can tell you. I didn't go asneakin' 
round, and spirit-broken, as I know every man 
must, if he's a slave ; but CC?^ I couldn't help 
standin' up straight, arter I knew I was 
free. ^TSs Oh ! what a glorious feelin' that is ! 
and oh ! how I pitied my poor brethren and sis- 
ters, that was in chains. I used to set down and 
think about it, and cry by the hour ; and when 
I git to thinkin' about it now, I wonder how 
any good folks, and specially christian peo- 
ple, can hate abolitionists..,^ I think it must 
be owin' to one of two things ; either they 
don't know the horrors or miseries of a slave's 
13* 



3 50 Prospecti, of the slaves — close of the book. 

life, or they can't have much feelin' ; for the 
anti-slavery society is the only society I know 
on, that professes to try to set 'em all free ; for 
you know the colonization folks have give up 
the idee long ago, that they can do any thing 
of any amount that way ; and so they say they 
are agoin' to enlighten Africa. And I can't for 
the life on me see how the abolitionists is so 
persecuted ; it's raly wonderful ! </]Q But I'm 
glad I can pray to God for the poor and oppres- 
sed, if I am a black man ; and I think it can't 
be a long time afore all the slaves go free — 
there is so many thousands of christians all 
prayln' for it so arnestly ; and so many papers 
printed for the slave, and so many sarmints 
preached for him, and sich a great struggle 
agoin' on for him ail over creation. Why all 
this is God's movin's, and nobody can't stop 
God's chariot wheels." ^Jj^ 

A. *' Well, Peter, you've come to a stopping 
place now, and I think we'll close this book, 
for I suppose you'll have some sea stories to 
tell." 

P. " Yis, Domine. I shall have some long 
yarns to reel off when I gets my sails spread out 
on the brine, for I think the rest of my history is 
mo touch to my sailor's life. But one thing, it 



Close of the Book. 151 



won't be so sorrowful, if 'tis strange; for, if I 
was rocked on the wave, I had this sweet 
thought to cheer me, as I lay down on my ham- 
mock, {5j^r?nfree;^Jj;i and dreams of liberty 
hung round my midnight pillow, and I was 
happy, because I was no longer Peter Wheeler 
in chains." 



Thoughts suggested by the incidents of the 
First Book, 

It may be profitable and interestmg to notice 
some of the principles involved in the foregoing 
story. The history of Peter Wheeler in Chains, 
is a rich chapter in the tale of oppression and 
slavery in America. The horrors and bar- 
barities here recorded, ought not to go forth 
before the citizens of a free nation, without 
producing an appropriate and powerful im- 
pression, that will give impidse and triumph to 
the principles of our constitution. A ^ew plain 
thoughts occur to the reader of this history, 
which we will notice : — 

I. We see the necessary and legitimate in- 
fluence of irresponsible power, upon its pes- 



1 52 Influence of irresponsible power. 

sessor and victims. It is one of the broad 
principles of the bible, and of our republican 
government, that it is not safe to place irre- 
sponsible power in the hands of a fallible being, 
under any circumstances; for, in every recorded 
instance of the world's history, it has been 
abused, and produced unmixed misery. 

When young Nero assumed the purple of 
imperial Rome, his heart revolted at the 
thought of tyranny, and when first asked to 
sign a criminal's death-warrant, his hand re- 
fused to do its office-work, and he exclaimed, 
"Would to God I had never learned to write." 
And yet, under the influence of irresponsible 
power, he at last became so transformed, that 
he illuminated his gardens with the bodies of 
burning Christians, and danced to the music of 
a drunken fiddler while Rome was on fire! As 
man is constituted, he is not equal to a posses- 
sion of unhmited power, without abusing it. 
Experience confirms all this, and common 
sense too. And if the history of every slave- 
holder in creation could be unfolded, we should 
see that every hour his character acquired new 
and worse features. Even if he did not grad- 
ually become more hard and tyrannical in his 
treatment of his slaves, yet it would be seen 



Slavery demoralizes the master. 153 

that his own heart was constantly losing its 
higher and nobler qualities, and the dark trail 
of oppression, like the course of the serpent, 
was leaving its foul and polluted stain upon all 
it touched. Slavery 7nust call forth malignant 
and unholy passions in the breast, and their 
repeated exercise must harden and pollute the 
heart. It degrades the whole man^ — for there 
is not a faculty or propensity of the being but 
what is tainted by the foul breath of slavery. 
The reader must have remarked the steady and 
rapid moral defilement which was going on in 
Peter's master, till at last he was plunged into 
the deepest degradation, which sought his death. 
Oh ! who can conceive of a degradation more 
complete than that which made its subject 
exult in the thought of torturing a poor black 
boy, even unto death ! There are noble and 
generous hearts in the South, who feel, most 
keenly, the debasing influence of slavery upon 
the father's, and the husband's, and the lover's 
heart ; and they are w^eeping, in secret places, 
because every green thing around the social 
altar is burned up by this withering blast. The 
author of this note has heard the lamentations 
of daughters and wives, whose homes have 
been made desolate by the foul spirit of tyranny, 



1 54 Tears of Southern mothers and icives. 

and their longings and prayers for a brighter 
day, which shall regenerate the South by eman- 
cipating the slave. Oh ! how can man become 
viler than to hunt down the poor fugitive slave, 
like a blood-hound, when he has cast off his 
fetters, and is emerging into the light and glory 
of freedom. The first impulse of a generous 
or benevolent heart would be joy, to see the 
poor victim break away from his bondage, and 
go free, in God's beautiful world. Let us hear 
no more of the desire of the South to emanci- 
pate their slaves, when every fugitive is tracked 
by blood-hounds, till he crosses the waters of 
the St. Lawrence, and finds shelter under the 
throne of a British Queen. In most instances, 
slavery will make the master thirst for the 
blood of the slave who escapes from his chains ; 
and let this fact bespeak its influence on his 
heart. 

II. Opposition to anti-slavery principles, is 
no new thing under the sun. We should con- 
clude, from the reasoning of some, in these days, 
that all efforts made to suppress slavery, which 
elicit the opposition of the South, must be wrong, 
for, say they, " slavery can be destroyed with- 
out any opposition from the slaveholder !" 

Monstrous ! ! ! what f the most stupendous 



Any remedy for slavery will he opposed at the South. 155 

Structure of selfishness and abominations on 
earth, be uptorn without opposition or convul- 
sion ! As well may you say, that God could 
have emancipated the Hebrew^s, without exci- 
ting so much opposition from their masters ! 
The truth is, that the doctrine was never 
broached till these latter days, that freedom 
could be achieved without a struggle. As 
well say that our fathers could have achieved 
the independence of '76 without opposition. The 
experiment was made for twenty years, by co- 
lonizationists, to do away v/ith slavery, without 
opposition, and, accordingly, they were obliged 
to mould their scheme and plans to suit the 
South, so as to avoid opposition ; and the South 
succeeded, and gave them a scheme which 
would transport to a dark, and desolate, and 
heathen shore, to die of starvation, four or five 
thousand, while the increase was 700,000, ^^ 
to say nothing of the old stock on hand. Good 
reason why the South should not oppose such a 
plan. They would display unutterable folly in 
their opposition. 

Slavery/ is one of the strongholds of hell, and 
it is not to be torn down without a struggle, any 
more than satan will surrender any other part 
of his kingdom without opposition. Peter's, 



156 Slavery cannot make slaves contented. 

master was enraged at any reproof or interfe- 
rence from others, that came in collision with 
his tyranny, and so it is now . 

III. We see, also, that the slave, in all ages, 
thinks so badly of slavery, that he is disposed 
to run away, if he can. This is enough to say 
about slavery. Men are not disposed to run 
away from great blessings. And yet we are 
told, constantly, by the South, that the slaves 
are contented and happy with their masters. 
Now, if this is true, it only makes slavery worse ; 
for what kind of a system is that which degra- 
des a man so low, and prostrates all his better 
and more glorious attributes to such degrada- 
tion, that thelove of liberty is crushed in his soul; 
that no heaven-directed thought is hfted for the 
high enjoyments of an intellectual and bright 
being ; that he is stripped of all that he receiv- 
ed from Jehovah, which elevates him above 
the worm that crawls at his feet. Oh ! fellow- 
man beware ! if you have succeeded so com- 
pletely in defacing the lineaments of divinity 
in the human soul, that all the glorious objects 
of creation will not draw forth from his bosom 
a thought or a wish after a brighter abode. 
If the gay carol of the wild bird, or the fresh 
breezes of morning which bring it to his ear. 



Slavery cannot hill Uie whole man. 157 

or the stars of heaven, as they roll in their 
orbits, or the bright dashing of the unfettered 
waters which sweep by, or the playful gambols 
of the lamb that skips and plays on their banks ; 
or, above all, if the spirit of the Eternal Father, 
which breathes nobility and greatness into the 
soul of his children, does not fan the fires of 
liberty in his bosom; oh! fellow-man, if you 
have so completely dashed to oblivion and no- 
thingness, an immortal spirit, you have done a 
deed at which all hell would blush ; you have 
covered the throne of the Eternal in mourning. 
If this be true, you are worse than you have 
ever been described. 

But, Sir, your whole enginery of death has 
never accomplished such a total destruction as 
this. You may have degraded mind, and you 
have, but oh! thanks to God, you have not 
made such awful havoc with a deathless spirit 
as this. No ! you have only poured gall into 
wounded spirits ; you have only torn open 
deeply lacerated bosoms ; — you have only 
plucked the most glorious pearl from man's 
diadem ; you have only heaped insult upon a 
son or a daughter of God Almighty, who is re- 
deemed by the blood of the Lamb ; — and your 
stroke or bolt of wo, that unchained the spirit, 
14 



] 58 ^^fiy thousand slaves run away every year. 

only open a passage-way for it to the gates of 
eternal glory. But, you have done enough 
God knows ! You have done enough to heap 
np fuel for your own damnation; and en- 
circled by those faggots, "you shall burn, and 
none shall quench them," through eternal ages, 
unless you are cleansed by atoning blood. 

The truth is yet to be told. The slave is 
not contented and happy — more, no slave in 
the universe ever was, or can be contented, till 
God shall strip him of his divinity which makes 
him a man. T have conversed with several 
thousands in bondage, and many who have got 
free, and never did I hear such a sentiment fall 
from human lips. It is estimated by facts al- 
ready in our possession, (viz. the numbers who 
win their way to freedom, and those who are 
advertised as run-aways who are caught,) that 
more than fifty thousand slaves attempt their 
escape from bondage every year. And yet so 
anxious are their masters to still bind the 
chains, that many of them are chased over one 
thousand miles. What bare-faced hypocrisy 
in a man, to give money to transport to an in- 
hospitable and barbarous clime, a worn-out 
slave, and yet to chase his brother ons thou- 



Tfie debasing meanness of Slavery. 159 

sand miles to reduce him again to bondage, or 
to death ! ! 

IV. The loio and base meanness of slave-hold- 
ing. Nothing is accounted meaner than theft 
and stealing ! ^sy^ And yet OC?^ every slave- 
holder is necessarily a constant, and perpetual 
thief. ^J^ He steals the slave's body and 
soul. And if there is one kind of theft which 
is worse than all others, it is to steal the wages 
of the poor, three hundred and sixty-five days 
in the year ! It would be accounted very 
mean in a rich man, to employ a poor day la- 
borer and then follow him to his home at night, 
after the toils of the day were over, and steal 
from his pocket the price of his day's labor, 
which he had paid to him to buy bread for his 
children, and such a man w^ould be called a 
wretch all over the w^orld ; — and yet every 
slaveholder as absolutely steals the slave's 
wages every night — for he goes to his dwelling 
and family, if he have one, pennyless after a 
day of hard toil. It w^ould be considered the 
worst kind of meanness to go, and divide, and 
separate by an impassable distance the mem- 
bers of a poor family ; and yet not a slave lives 
in the South, wdio has not at some time or 



160 Danger of the principle— property in man. 

Other, seen the same barbarous practice in the 
circle of his own relationship, and love. 

It is the necessary and legitimate inference 
of the master, from the doctrine oithe right of 
property in man^ that all the slave possesses or 
acquires belongs to the one who owns him. 
Accordingly, Morehouse had a perfect right to 
the broadcloth coat which Mr. Tucker gave 
Peter for saving the life of his daughter. The 
whole difficulty, the grand cause of all the bar- 
barities of slavery, lies in this unfounded and 
infamous claim of the right to own, as property, 
the image of the Great Jehovah. Destroy this 
claim, and slavery must cease forever. Ac- 
knowledge it in any instance, or under any cir- 
ciwistances, and the flood-gate is flung wide 
open to the most tyrannical oppression in an 
hour. This was illustrated in the case of Dr. 
Ely, of Philadelphia, who pretended to be " op- 
posed to slavery as much as any body," and 
yet who still maintained that corner-stone prin- 
ciple of tyranny, " that it is right imder certain 
circumstances to hold man as property.'' He 
removed to a slave state, and found that "these 
circumstances" occurred. He lought a slave, 
Ambrose, with, (as he declared,) henevolont de- 
signs, intending to spend the avails of his un- 



The experiment satisfactorily made. 161 

requited labor, in buying others to emancipate. 
He was expostulated with by his brethren in 
the ministry, and out of it, against the sin of his 
conduct in owning a fellow-man^ and making the 
innocent labor without reward, to free the en- 
slaved. And " the hire of the laborer which 
he kept back cried to God." He was told of 
the danger of owning a man for an hour, by a 
keen-sighted editor of New York ; and this 
same editor uttered a prophecy which seemed 
almost like the voice of inspiration, that God 
would pour contempt upon such an unholy ex- 
periment, "of doing evil that good might come." 
But still the Doctor passed on, and heeded it 
not. At length, after that prophecy had been 
forgotten by all but the friends of the slave, its 
fulfilment came from the shores of the Missis- 
sippi, and God had blasted the Doctor's un- 
righteous scheme, and his speculations all fail- 
ed, and poor Ambrose was sold to pay his 
master's debts. .^ Then the experiment 
was fairly, and one w^ould think, satisfactorily 
made, and the principle was settled fore ver by 
God's providence, that " it is wrong under any 
circumstances to hold man as property.''' AVe 
want the slaveholder to give up his unholy, and 
unfounded claim to the image of God, and when 
14* 



162 Influence of oppression upon its victim. 

he will practically acknowledge this principle, 
then he will cease to be a slaveholder. 

V. We see, in the light of this story, the 
debasing, degrading, and withering influence 
of slavery upon its poor victim. Peter tells 
the truth, when he says, " no man can hold up 
his head like a man if he is a slave." Any 
person who has been on a southern plantation 
must confess, that there is a degraded and ser- 
vile air upon the countenance of all the slaves. 
A more abject, low, vacant, inhuman look, 
cannot be seen in the face of a being in the 
world, than you see when you meet a southern 
slave. It is not the tame and subdued look of 
a jaded beast. It is infinitely more painful to 
behold a slave than such a spectacle. He 
seems to be a man with the soul of a beast ; 
God's image does not speak from his dim and 
lustreless eye, or his lifeless and degraded 
bearing. You see a human form, but you 
cannot see the image of his 3Iaker and Father 
there. The slave loses his self-respect, and 
all regard for his nature. He is shut out from 
all the lovely and glorious objects of creation ; 
and a soul which was made to soar upward in 
an eternal flight towards its Sire, is smothered, 
and debased, and ruined ; — its existence is al- 



A slave '. — What is lie 1— The Judgment will anstoer. 163 

most blotted from creation, and when it leaves 
its abused and lacerated house of mortality, 
the world does not feel the loss ; — the dei>ar- 
ture is unnoticed, except by a few who loved 
him in life, and are glad when his pilgrimage 
is over. The spirit flies, " no marble tells us 
whither ;" and he is forgotten, and only a few 
like himself know that he ever existed in a 
green and beautiful world. But *' a soul is a 
deathless thing," and that soul shall speak at 
the last judgment day ! It shall tell its tale 
of blood to an assembled universe, and that 
universe shall pronounce the doom of its mur- 
derer. .-/][) In forecasting the proceedings of 
the last day, I tremble to think I shall be one 
of its spectators ; not because I shall be tried j 
for I humbly trust I shall have an advocate 
there, whose plea the Judge will accept, and 
whose robe of complete righteousness shall 
mantle my naked spirit. But the revelations 
of that solemn tribunal, which millions of en- 
slaved Africans shall unfold, will make the 
universe turn pale. And I should feel a de- 
sire to withdraw behind the throne, till the 
sentence had been passed upon all buyers, and 
sellers, and owners, of the image of the Om- 
nipotent Judge, and executed ; did I not wish 



i54 ^^'^ glorious influence of freedom on man. 

to behold all the scenes of that great day, and 
mingle my sympathies with all the fortunes of 
that Throne, For, as I expect to stand among 
that mighty company, who shall cluster around 
the Judgment Seat, I do believe, that God's 
Book icill contain no page so dark with rebellion 
and crime, as that ivhich records the story of 
American Slavery! And yet I believe that 
that Book will embrace the history of the 
whole creation. 

VI. We see the glorious and hallowed in- 
fluence of freedom upon man : — 

No sooner had Peter escaped from chains, 
than he began to emerge from degradation into 
the dignity of a human being. He breathed an 
inspiring and ennobling atmosphere ; he felt 
the greatness and glory of immortal existence 
steal over him, and his soul, which had been 
shrouded in darkness, begun to lift itself up 
from a moral sepulchre, and feel the life-giving 
energy of a resurrection from despair. It must 
have been so, for man's element is freedom, 
and it cannot live in any other ; deprived of its 
necessary element, it will languish and die. 

While I am writing this paragra[>h, Peter 
Wheeler comes into my room, and we will hear 
his own testimony ; he says, " Arter I'd got my 



What freedom did for Peter. \Q[ 



liberty, I felt as though I was in a new icorld ; 
although I suffered, for a while, a good deal, 
with fear of being catched. 

"When I look back, and think how much I 
suffered by bein' beat, and banged, and whipt, 
and starved ; and then my feelin's arter I got 
free, when I held up my head among men, and 
nobody pinted at me when I went by and said, 
' there goes this man's nigger, or that man's 
nigger ;' why, I can't describe how I felt for 
two or three years. I was almost crazy with 
joy. What I got for work was my oiv?i, and if 
I had a dollar, I would slap my hand on my 
pocket and say, ' thafs my own;'' and if I haul- 
ed out my turnip, why it ticked for me and not 
for master, and 'twas mine tu when it ticked. 
And I bought clothes, and good ones, and my 
own amines paid for 'em. In fact, I breathed, 
and thought, and acted, all different, and it was 
almost like what a person feels when he is 
changed from darkness into light. Besides, 
when gentlemen and ladies put a handle to my 
name, and called me Mr. Wheeler^ vvhy, for 
months I felt odd enough ; for you see a slave 
han't got no name only * nig,' or ' cuss,' or 
' skunk,' or ' cuffee,' or ' darkey ;' and then, 
besides, I was treated like a man. And if you 



166 T^tc, effect of freedom upon Peter. 

show any body any kindness, or attention, or 
good will, you improve their characters, for 
you make them respect you, and themselves, 
and the whole human race a sight more than 
ever. Why, respect and kindness lifts up any 
body or thing. Even the beast or dog, if you 
show 'em a kindness, they never will forgit it, 
and they'll strut and show pride in treatin' on 
you well ; and pity if man is of sich a natur' 
that he ain't as noble as that, then I give 
it up. Why, arter I come to myself, and I 
would git up and find all the family as pleasant 
as could be, and I would go out and look, and 
see the sun rise, and hear the birds sing, and 
I felt so joyful that I fairly thought my heart 
would leap out of my body, and I would turn on 
my heel and ask myself ' is this Peter Wheeler, 
or ain't it ? and if 'tis me, why how changed I 
be.' I felt as a body would arter a long sick- 
ness, when they first got able to be out, and felt 
a light mornin' breeze comin' on 'em, and a 
fresh, cool kind of a feelin' comin' over 'em ; 
and they would think they never see any thing, 
or felt any thing afore, for all seemed brighter 
and more gloriouser than ever ; and oh ! it 
does seem to me that no Christian people in 
the world can help v/antin' to see all free, for 



Prejudice agbi' color at the bottom. 167 

Christians love to see all God's crutters 
happy. 

VII. "I b'lieve that one of the wickedest 
and most awful things in creation, and the root, 
and bottom, and heart of all the evil, is preju- 
dice agin' color.' «^ There is most, or quite 
as much of this at the North as there is at the 
South, for I can speak from experience. There 
is that disgrace upon us, that many people 
think It's a disgrace to 'em to have us come 
into a room where they be, for fear that they 
will be blacked, or disgraced, or stunk up by us 
poor off-scourin' of 'arth. And if I come 
into a room with a sarver of tea, coffee, rum, 
wine, or sich like, they can't smell any thing ; 
but jist the second I set down on an equal with 
'em, as one of the company, they pretend they 
can smell me. But, worse than this, this same 
disgrace is cast on our color in the Sanctuary 
of the Living God. In enemost all the meetin' 
houses, you see the ' nigger pew ;' and when 
they come to administer the Lord's Supper, 
they send us off into some dark pew, in one 
corner, by ourselves, as though they thought we 
would disgrace 'em, and stink 'em up, or black 
'em, or somethin.' Why, 'twas only at the 
last Sacrament in our Church this took olace. 



IGS Slavery at a Northern communian table. 

All communicants was axed to come and par- 
take together, and I come down from the gal- 
lery, and as I come into the door, to go and set 
down among 'em ; one of the elders stretch- 
ed out his arm, with an air of disdain, and 
beckoned me away to a corner pew, where 
there was no soul within two or three pews on 
me, as though he had power to save or cast off. 
Now think what a struggle I had, when I sot 
down, to git my mind into a proper state for 
the solemn business I was agoin to do. 

"First, I thought it was hard for me to be so 
cast off by my brethren in the church, and a 
feeUn' riz, and I fit agin' it, and, finally, I 
thought I could submit to my fate; and I be- 
lieved God could see me, and hear my cry, and 
accept my love, as well there as though I sot in 
the midst on 'em. And it is the strangest thing 
in the world, too, that Christian people can act 
so. There must be some of the love of Chris- 
tianity wantin' in their hearts, or they could 
not treat a brother in Christ in that way. As 
I sot there, I thought, - can there be any sicb 
place as a dark-hole, or black pew, or behind the 
door, or under the fence, in heaven ? If there 
is sich a spirit or policy there, I don't feel very 



Slavery vi Northern graveyards. J 69 

anxious desire to go there.' The bible says, 
* God is no respecter of persons. '^^^DO 

"And what is worse than all, this spirit is 
carried to the graveyard ; and for fear that 
the dead body of a black man shall black up or 
disgrace the body of a white, they go and dig 
holes round under the fences, and off in a wet 
corner, or under the barn, and put all of our 
colour in 'em ; for every one may be an eye- 
witness if he'll go to our graveyard and others ; 
for I have lived now goin' on fourteen years 
in one place, and any colored person who has 
been buried at all there, has been buried all 
along under the fences, and close up to the old 
barn that stands there. I know God will re- 
ceive the souls of sich, jist as well as though 
they was buried in the middle of the yard, but 
I say this, to let the reader know what a cruel 
and unholy thing prejudice agin color is, 
and what it will do to us poor black people. 

" Now I know that all this is the reason 
why the people of our colour don't rise any 
faster. The scorn, the disgrace that every 
body flings on 'em, keeps 'em down, and they 
are sinkin', and such treatment is enough to 
sink the Rocky mountains. 

" Now I know from experience, that the 
15 



170 Slavery at the South, and prejudice at the North. 

better you treat a black man the better he will 
behave ; for his own pride will keep his ambi- 
tion up, and he'll try to rise; why if you should 
treat white folks so they'd grow bad jist as 
fast. Why, who don't know that a body will 
try to git the good will of those who treat 'em 
well, so as to make 'em respect 'em still more ? 
And it's jist like chmbin' a ladder; you'll git 
up a round any day, but if you keep a knock- 
in' a man on the head with the club of preju- 
dice, how in the name of common sense can he 
climb up. 

" Now this is most as bad as slavery ; ^^ for 
slavery keeps the foot on the black man's neck 
all the time, and don't let 'em rise at all ; and 
prejudice keeps a knockin' on him down as fast 
as he gits up ; and we ought not to go to the 
South, till we can git the people of the North 
to treat our color like men and women. A 
good many people oppose abolitionists, and 
say, * why what will you do with the niggers 
when they are free ? They will become drun- 
ken sots and vagabonds like our niggers at the 
North ; why don't thei/ rise ?' I can answer 
that question in a hurry ! The reason is, be- 
cause they don't give us the same chance with 
white folks ; they won't take us into their 



Give colored folks a chance. 171 



schools and colleges, and seminaries, and we 
don't be allowed to go into good society to im- 
prove us ; and if we set up business they 
won't patronize us ; they want us to be bar- 
bers, and cooks and whitewashers and shoe- 
blacks and ostlers, camp-cuUimen, and sich 
kind of mean low business. We ain't suffered 
to attend any pleasant places, or enjoy the ad- 
vantages of debating schools and libraries, and 
societies, <fcc. <fec., and all these things is jist 
what improves the whites so fast. And if we by 
hook or by crook git into any sich place, why 
some feller will step on our toes, and give us 
a shove, and say, ' stand back nig, you can 
see jist as well a little furder off. 

" Now all these things is what keeps us so 
much in the back ground ; for if we have a 
chance, we git up in the world as fast as any 
body. For there is smart and respectable co- 
lored folks ; and you sarch out their history, 
and you'll find that they once had a good chance 
to git larnin', and they jumped arterit. I think 
one of the greatest things the abolition folks 
should be arter, is to help the free people of co- 
lor to git up in the world, and grow respecta- 
ble, and educated, and then we will prove false 
what our enemies say, ' that we are better off 
in chains than we be in freedom.' " 



BOOK THE SECOND. 



PETER WHEELER ON THE DEEP. 



CHAPTER I. 

Beginning of sea stories — sails with Captain Truesdell for 
the West-Indies — feelings on leaving the American shore — 
sun-set at sea — shake hands with a French frigate— a storm — 
old Neptune— a bottle or a shave — caboose — Peter gets two 
feathers in his cap— St. Bartholomews— climate — slaves— 
oranges — turtle — a small pig, " but dam' old" — weigh an- 
chor for New York — "sail hoi" — a wreck — a sailor on a 
buoy — get liim aboard — his story — gets well, and turns out 
to be an enormous swearer — couldn't draw a breath with- 
out an oath— approach to New-York— quarantine— pass 
the Narrows — drop anchor — rejoicing limes— Peter jumps 
ashore " a free nigger." 

Author . *' Where do you hail from to day, 
Peter.?" 

Peter. " From the street, where I've found 
some folks that makes me feel bad." 

A. " What now, Peter .?" 

P. "Why, there's some folks that feels en- 
vious and flings this in my face — ' Oh ! you've 
got to be a mighty big nigger lately, han't 
15* 



174 Sea-stories — IVeigk anchor. 

ye ? and you're agoin' to have your life wrote.' 
And this comes principally from people of my 
own colour, only now and then a white person 
flings in somethin' to make it go glib ; but the 
white folk round here generally treat me very 
kindly." 

A. " Well, don't revenge yourself, Peter ; 
bear it like a man and a christian. Now let 
us launch out on the deep." 

P. Well, we'll weigh anchor, — but it won't 
do for me to tell every thing that happened to 
me in my sea v'iges, for 'twould fill fifty books ; 
and so I'll only tell some things that always 
seemed to please folks more'n the rest : 

I followed the North River all that summer 
I run away, and in the fall of that year Cap- 
tain John Truesdell sold his sloop and engaged 
to go out to sea as master of a large vessel for 
a company of New York merchants. 

*' So, on the 22d of October, 1806, at nine 
o'clock we weighed anchor for St. Bartholo- 
mews, and bore away for the Narrows. Arter 
we'd got out some ways, I turned back to 
take one look at my old native land, and I felt 
kind'a streaked, and sorry and grieved, and you 
may say I felt kind'a rejoiced tu, for if I was 
a goin' away from home and country, out on 



Sails for St. Bartholomeics. 176 

the wide waters, I'd got my liberty, and was 
every day gettin' it stronger, 

"We had a fine ship ; she was one of the 
largest vessels in port, and she carried twenty 
guns, for she was rigged to sail for any port, 
and fight our own way. We had thirty-seven 
able-bodied men besides officers ; and in all, 
with some officers, about fifty men aboard. 
When we'd been out nearly two days, towards 
night, we looked ofi" ashore, and the land look- 
ed bluer and bluer, till all on it disappeared, 
and nothin' could be seen but a wide waste of 
waters, blue as anything, and the sun set jist 
as though it fell into a bed of gold ; and when 
the moon riz she looked jist as though she 
come up out of the ocean ; and the next mor- 
nin', when the mornin' star rose, he looked 
like a red hot cinder out of a furnace. Well, 
we all looked till we got out of sight of land, 
and then some went to cryin' and / felt rather 
ticklish ; but most on us went to findin' out 
some amusements. The sails was all filled 
handsome, and she bounded over the waters 
jist like a bird. Some on us went to playin* 
cards, some dice, and some a tellin' stories, 
and he that told the fattest story was the best 
feller. 



17b Shake hands with a French Frigate. 

*' Next day 'bout nine in the mornin', we 
spied a French frigate on our larboard bow, 
bearin' right down upon us, and first she hail- 
ed, "ship ahoy!" Captain answered, and 
the frigate's captain says, "what shipf" 
" Sally Ann, from New- York." The French- 
man hollered, " drop your peak and come un- 
der our lee." And he did, and he come on 
board our ship with twelve men, and captain 
took 'em down into the cabin, and hollers for 
me, and says, ' bring twelve bottles of madei- 
ra ;" and so I did, and stepped back and listen- 
ed, and there they talked and jabbered, and I 
couldn't understand 'em any more'n a parcel 
of skunk blackbirds ; but our captain could 
talk some French. Well, they stayed aboard 
I guess, two hours, and examined the ship all 
through, and then they left, and boarded their 
ship, and they fired us two guns, and we an- 
swered 'em with two stout ones, and then we 
bore off under a stiflf breeze. This is what 
sailors calls shakin' hands, and wishin' good 
luck, this firin' salutes. 

** The fifth day about ten o'clock A.M. there 
comes up a tremendous thunder storm, and 
the waves run mountain high, and it blowed 
as thousrh the heavens and arth was a comin* 



Thunder-storm at Sm. 177 

together ; and the wind and storm riz till two 
o'clock in the arternoon, and increased ; and 
we drew an ile cloth over the hatch comin's 
and companion way. And all the sails was took 
down, every rag on 'em, and we sailed under 
bare poles ; and the log was flung out, and we 
found we was a runnin' at the rate of fifteen 
knots an hour ; and there come a sea and swept 
every thing fore and aft, and it took me, for 
I'd just come out of my caboose, and swept 
my feet right from under me, but I hung fast 
to the shrouds ; and there wave arter wave 
beat agin us, and swept over us clean. And 
oh ! dear me suz, the lightnin' struck on the 
water and sisscd like hot iron flung in, and the 
thunder crashed like a fallin' mountain, and 
the sailors acted some on 'em pretty decent, 
and the rest on 'em like crazy folks. They 
ripped, and swore, and cussed, and tore dis- 
trcssedly ; and one old feller up aloft reefin' 
sail, his head was white as flax, cussed his 
Maker, 'cause he didn't send it harder. 

" Oh! how I trembled w^hen I heard him i 
Why he scart me a thousand times worse than 
the lightnin'. 'Bout nine at night we tries 
the pumps, and finds three feet water in the 
hold, and then eight men went to pumpin' till 



1 78 Thunder-storm at iSea. 



the pumps sucked, and the captain looked 
pretty serious I tell ye; and 'bout twelve o' 
clock the storm vrent down, and all was quiet, 
only the sea, and that was distressedly angry ; 
and the next mornin' 'twas as calm, as the 
softest evenin' ye ever see. 

" Captain comes round and says, ' boys, 
old Neptune will be round to-day, and make 
every one pay his bottle or be shaved,' and 
sure enough, 'bout eleven the old feller comes 
aboard with an old tarpaulin hat on, and his 
jacket and breeches all tore to strings, and the 
water running otF on him, and says, * captain 
you got any of ray boys aboard ?' ' Yis, here's 
one ;' and he p'inted at me. ' Well boy, what 
have you got for me to day ?' ' A bottle of 
wine,' says I ; and he says '• now I'm goin' to 
swear you by the crook of your elbow, and 
the break of the pump, that you will let no 
man pass without a bottle or a shave.' So he 
goes round to all on board and then goes 
away. The captain told me he was ' old 
Ne])tune, and lived in the ocean ;' but I was 
detarmined to foller him ; so on I goes arter 
him, and I finds him snug hid under the cat- 
head a changin' his clothes, and then he comes 
on deck, and I charged him that he was the 



A bottle or a shace from old Neptune. 179 

old Neptune, and finally he confessed it, and 
said 'twas the way all old sailors did to make 
every raw hand, w hen they got to sich a spot 
in the ocean, pay his bottle or be shaved with 
tar, soap, and an iron razor. 

" Along in the day, captain calls all hands on 
deck, and says, ' we've had a pretty hard time 
boys, and now we'll rig a new caboose, and 
clear up, and then we'll splice the main brace ;' 
and 'twas done quick and well, for grog was 
ahead. 

•' The captain says to me, ' now cook, you go 
down and draw that ten quart pail full of wine, 
and give every man a half a pint ; and drink 
and be merry boys, but let no man get drunk. 
Well, I got a good supper, and arter that a 
jollier set of fellers you never seed. We was 
runnin' under a stiff breeze from N. W. and all 
•sails well filled; and we had sea stories, and 
songs, and music, and all kinds of amusements, 
and the captain was as jolly as any body. 

" Well, arter bedtime, the captain says, 
* cook, you must be my watch to-night,' and 
he comes and tells me jist how to manage the 
helm ; and he turns in, and I managed it tcell, 
for I'd managed his old sloop on the river, but 
this was somethin' more of a circumstance ; 



180 Peter gets two considerable feathers in his cap, 

and afore the watch was up, I got so I could 
manage a ship as well as the fattest on 'em, 
and a tickelder feller you never see. 

" In the mornin' the hands praised me up ; 
and the captain says, ' why, he's the best man 
aboard, for he can do mi/ duty ;' and that made 
me feel good, and I got two considerable fea- 
thers in my cap that time. 

" But I must hurry on. We made St. Bar- 
tholomews in nineteen days from New York, 
and sold cargo, and took in a load for Porto 
Rico, and there filled up with sugar and molas- 
ses, and put out for New York. The climate 
there was hot enough to scorch all the wool off 
a nigger's head. The fever was ragin' dread- 
fully in another part of the island, and we 
didn't, any on us, pretend to go ashore much. 
The sand was so hot at noon 'twould burn your 
feet, and the white inhabitants didn't go out 
at all in the middle of the day ; but the niggers 
didn't seem to mind the heat at all ; bare-foot- 
ed, bare-headed, and half-naked ; yis, more'n 
halt a considerable, and it seemed the hotter 
it was the better they liked it. But they suf- 
fered a god deal, and they'd come aboard our 
ship and try to make thick with the crew. 
They talked a broken Ungo, kind'a Ginney, I 



Stories about thz West- Indies— a iconderful pig . Jgl 

s'pose ; and they called white folks * buddee,* 
and they'd say, ' buddee give eat, and I give 
buddee orange.' And so at night, they'd fetch 
their oranges aboard, and give a heap on 'em 
for a few sea-biscuit, and I tell ye, them oran- 
ges wan't slow. One night, five or six on 'em 
fetched a big sea turkle aboard, and we bought 
him and paid a kag of biscuit for him, and he 
weighed two hundred and seventy pounds, and 
the fellers seemed dreadfully rejoiced, and pat- 
ted their lips and bellies, and laughed, and kiss- 
ed the captain's feet, and laughed and seemed 
tickled enough, and off they went. Next day 
another feller come aboard, and says, * Cappy, 
you buy fat pig ?' ' Yis, and when will you bring 
himf ' Mornin' Cappy.' So, in the morniii* 
he come aboard with his pig ; he was small, but 
terrible fat ; and so the captain pays him and 
looks at him, and says, 'Jack, your pig is 
small.' ' Oh ! massa, he's small, but dam old.'* 
Oh ! how the captain laughed ! and he used 
that for a bye-word all the v'yge. 

" Well, we cooked the turkle, and sich meat 
I never see ; there was all kinds on it, and if 
we didn't live fat for some days I miss my 
guess. I was a goin' to throw the shell over- 
board, but the captain hollered and stopped 
16 



Ig2 Something ahead. 



me, and so he saved it and sold it in New- York 
for a good sight of money ; and finally, arter 
bein' in the islands some time, we weighed an- 
chor for New York. 

" We'd got 'bout half way home, and one 
day the cabin boy was aloft, and he cries out, 
» Sail ho!' 

" ' Where away ?' ' Over the starboard quar- 
ter.' 

" ' How big ?' * As big as a pail of water.' 

" ' Bear down to her, helmsman, and you 
cook, bring my big glass.' So I brings it, and 
'twas a big jinted thing, and 'twould bring any 
thing ever so fur off as nigh as you pleased. 
Captain looks and says, * It's a man on a 
buoy.' And as we got nearer, sure enough we 
could see him ; and the captain cries, ' down 
with the small boat, man her strong, pnt out 
for him and handle him carefully.' And bein' 
pretty anxious, I was the first man aboard, 
and we come along side on him and lifts up his 
head, and he says in a weak voice, ' Oh ! my 
God ! don't hurt me ! !' And we lifts him np, 
and still he hangs to the buoy, and we told him 
to let go. And he says, ' I will, if you won't 
let me fall ;' and we told him we wouldn't, and 
he let go reluctantly, and we took him in j and 



A man on a Imoy taken from a wreck. 183 



his breast, where he lay on the buoy, wixsworn 
io the hone^ where he'd hugged it, and the mo- 
tion of the waves had chafed him so. Well, 
we got him down in a berth, and the captain 
tries to talk with him, but he couldn't speak, 
and we changes all the clothes on him that was 
left, and feeds him with cracker and wine ; and 
the captain sets and feels of his pulse, and says 
once in a while, ' he's doin' well' : and then 
he fell asleep, and slept an hour as calm as a 
baby, and the captain told me to wash him in 
Castile soap-suds, and says he, ' we'll have a 
new sailor in a hurry.' 

*' I prepares my wash and he wakes up, and 
says, * how in the name of God did I come 
here?' so we told him, and the captain says, 
' you hungry ?' ' Yis.' And I fed him a leetle 
more and washed him ; and oh ! how he swore, 
it smarted so. * Where's the captain,' says he. 
* Here.' ' Captain, have you got any rum T^^ 
And so he ordered him some weak sling, and 
arter this he seemed a good deal stronger, and 
then the captain sets his chair down by him, 
and asks him who he was and where he come 
from ? 

" He says, * my name is Tom Wilson, and 
I was born in Bristol, England, and hved there 



1 84 ^ great sailor, but an ajcfid iciched man. 

till I was sixteen, and then sailed for Boston, 
and followed the seas twenty years, and at last 
was pressed aboard an English man of war in 
London. I escaped, and got on board a French 
ship, and started for America in a merchant- 
man. We'd made 'bout half v'yge when a 
tremendous storm riz, and we was stove all to 
pieces, and every body and every thing went 
down, for all I know, and I took to a big cork 
buoy as my only hope. The last I see of the 
wreck was two days arter this. Well, I hung 
to my buoy, and floated on, and on, and it got 
calm, and it got to be the fifth day, and I 
thought I must give up. I lost all sense ene- 
most, and didn't know what did happen, till 1 
beard your boat come up, and then my heart 
fluttered ; and now is the first time for days I 
know what I am about. And this is the 
second time I have been cast away and not a 
man aboard saved but myself. How long I 
was aboard the buoy arter I lost my sense, I 
can't say, but it seems to me it was some days, 
but I an't sartin. Now captain, if I get well, 
make me one of your men.' 

*' The captain says, ' I will, Tom.' 
*' Well, he got up fast, and eat up 'most all 
creation, he was so nigh starved ; and when 



Peter jumps ashore a free nigger. 185 

he got able to work ship-tackle, he turns out 
to be a great sailor, but an awful wicked 
man, for every breath heaved out an oath. 

" Well, in twenty-one days from the West- 
Indies, we made the New York Light, and 
then there was rejoicin' enough I tell ye. 1 
know I was glad enough, and as soon as we got 
hauled up, I jumped ashore and the first thing 
says I, 

'' Here's a Free Nigger."«^ 



16* 



186 P^^^^ prepares to go and see John Bull. 



CHAPTER II. 

Peter spends the winter of 1806—7 in New-York', sails .-n 
June in the Carnapkin for Bristol ; a sea tempest; ship be- 
calmed off the coast of England ; catch a shark and find a 
lady's hand, and gold ring and locket in him ; this locket, 
«fec. lead to a trial, and the murderer hung ; the mother of the 
lady visits the ship ; sail for home ; Peter sails with captain 
Wilhams on a trading voyage ; Gibraltar; description of it; 
sail to Bristol; chased by a privateer; she captured by a 
French frigate; sail for New- York; Peter lives a gentleman 
at large in " the big city of New York." 

Author, " What did you do in New York, 
Peter f" 

Peter, " We laid by and unrigged for win- 
ter, and the captain sent to Troy and had his 
family brought down to the city, and I lived in 
his family that winter as servant ; and I had 
fine times tu, for he was a noble man, and 
lived as independent as a prince, in Broadway, 
nigh where the Astor House stands. I had a 
fine winter of it, and come spring he hired the 
Carnapkin, one of the biggest and best ships 
in port, and all rigged. W^e w^eighed anchor 



A storm. — a shark reveals a murder. 187 

for Bristol, and this was rare sport for me, 
for we was a goin' to see old John Bull. 

*' When we'd been out about seven or eight 
days, we was overhauled by a tremendous 
storm from the north-east ; and it grew worse 
and worse, and about midnight she lay on her 
beam ends for some time, and we expected to 
go to pieces ; and the second mate sounded the 
hold and found four feet water in her, and 
that started the hair. We got the pumps a 
goin' and pretty soon the captain hollers out, 
* she rights,' and glad enough we was ; and the 
carpenter found her leak, and makes all tight, 
and by next day all was clear as a bell. The 
captain foundhimself ofFof his com'se over two 
hundred miles, and so he hauls on agin ; and 
in about twenty days we made sight of the 
white coast of old England, and there we was 
becalmedfor two days, and didn't stir a mile. 

" The captain says, ' now boys, you may go 
and fish till we git a breeze.' Well, we hadn't 
been out lung afore we fell foul of a shark, and 
the first thing he knowed he had the harpoon 
in him, and we got him aboard, and then we 
calculated on a great hurrah, and sure enough 
we did have a melancholy one tu. The captain 
says, * now let's ha^'e his liver cooked,' for you 



188 ^7^6 mother sees the relics of her murdered child. 

see a shark's liver is a great dish at sea. And 
so I goes to work and cuts him open, and what 
do you think I found there ? 

*' Why the first thing I found was the haiid 
of ahu7nan person, and on the middle finger was 
a gold ring, and on it 'twas wrote who she was 
in Spanish characters. The captain stands by 
and says, ' dig carefully a leetle furder and see 
what you find.' So on I dug with my butcher 
knife, and up comes a gold chain ; and I pulled 
away and out come a gold locket, and it had a 
lock of hair in it, and a name on it. We hunt- 
ed along and found human bones, and nails of 
fingers partly dissolved, 

"Well, the captain sings out, * fling the 
monster overboard, for we won't have any 
thing aboard that devours human flesh ; and 
cook you clean that locket and hand, «fec., as 
clean as you can.' And so I did, and the hand 
we preserved in rum, and the captain kept all 
of 'em till we got to port, and then we found 
out the eend on it, and all about it. 

*' Well, we made port, and then the captain 
advertises the story of the shark ; and the day 
arter this there come a splendid carriage to 
the dock, and who should it be but a Spanish 
lady, and she was in great splendor tu, and 



The motJicrs grief. ISQ 



she comes aboard and calls for the captain ; 
and he waits upon her with great respect down 
into the cabin, and her servant goes down with 
her, and she spoke in broken English, and 
asks him all about the shark, and then he tells 
all about it, and then showed her the hand ; 
and when I brought it she broke out into ' my 
God !' and she seemed to be grieved and vex- 
ed, and broken down, and yit spunky by turns ; 
and then she'd say, as she looked at the locket 
and hand and ring, * sacra venga,' and swear, 
and her face would look red and pale by turns ; 
and finally she turns to the captain and says, 
* Sir, this was my child,' and says she ' there 
was a young Spaniard engaged to my daugh- 
ter, and they walked out one evening towards 
the water-side, and that's the last I've heard 
of my child till now. He went to his own lodg- 
ings that night and was inquired of for her, but 
giv e no answer, and they made great sarch for 
her, but nothin' could we hear. It always 
seemed to me he killed her, but I couldn't git 
any evidence of it, and so I let it rest, and this 
happened nearly two weeks ago, and to day, 
you and your crew must come up and testify 
to the whole transaction.' So she left. 

That arternoon, four gentlemen come in a 



190 Th trial— a Royal court— the confession. 

coach to the ship, and we had to go up to the 
City Hall, I guess 'twas ; a large stone build- 
ing, and it had great pillars in front on it, and 
I looked at it good I tell you, for 'twas the 
handsomest buildin' I ever see. So we got 
there, and they put us all into a room and 
locked us up ; and we stayed there till two 
o'clock, and then a man come and took out 
the captain, and then me, and I was sworn, 
and told the whole story ; and then all the crew 
was fetched on, and testified the same thing ; 
and the cabin-boy, when he finished his testi- 
mony, says, 'and I believe this lady was killed 
and flung overboard by some body,' and he said 
it with some courage, tu ; and at that a young 
Spaniard of a dark complexion and long black 
eyebrows that come round under a curl at the 
corner of his eye, and oh ! how black his eye 
was, and he had long mustaches on his upper 
lip, and a big pair of whiskers, and I tell you 
he looked as though he could murder as easy 
as you could eat a meal of victuals. But he 
looked kind'a chopfallen, and up he got, and 
says he, 'I'm the man — I flung her off the 
wharf, and I give myself up to the law ;' you 
see he had been taken and brought to the bar. 
Then the king's Attorney Gineral, spoke to 



T!ie speech of the Attorney General. 191 

this prisoner, and I tell you he was dressed 
splendidly. He had on an elegant blue coat 
and satin vest, and black satin pantaloons, and 
buff pumps, and he had on a girdle of red mo- 
rocco, and it had a gold plate in front, and it 
had a big star on it, and his head was powder- 
ed in great style, and he fixes his eyes on the 
Spaniard like a blaze of fire, and says, * pri- 
soner, deliver up that knife in your sleeve f and 
at that the Spaniard slips a ribbon off of his 
wrist and drew out a knife like what we call a 
Bowie knife in this country, and handed it to 
the Attorney, and I tell ye if the Spaniard 
didn't look beat ! 

"And then his lawyer got up and made a 
smart plea for him and set down ; but then you 
might know he was a rowin' agin the tide, for 
he was a pleadin' for the devil himself. 

" Then the Attorney Gineral got up, and 
says, ' My Lords and Judges, and Gentlemen 
of the Jury, &c. <fec.' And if he didn't make 
a splendid plea then I'm no judge — I once 
could tell all about it, for you see I was all ear 
when them big fellers spoke and we all talked 
it over on the v'yge so much, and what one for- 
got 'tother recollected, and then besides 'twas 
published in the Bristol papers ; and once I 



192 The American Court. 



could say it all to a T, and I only wish I could 
remember it word for word, it would be sich 
great stuff for this book. But my memory 
has kind'a failed me for a few years ; only I 
know the Gineral made all on us cry, he talked 
so fine, and I do remember the closin' off say- 
in'. * My Lords, I have now finished the de- 
fence for the crown, and I submit the case to 
your lordships, feeling that your verdict will 
respect the rights of the throne and the liber- 
ties and safety of its loyal subjects. My Lords 
I have done.' And down he sat. 

" And there that big room — it was as big as 
the whole of our big red barn — was crowded 
full as it could stick and hold, and there was 
a'most all nations on 'arth there. And I tell you 
if I didn't feel fine to git up afore my lords, (as 
that ere Attorney Gineral called 'em,) and all 
them big bugs, and tell about that poor lady 
there ; and there agin I was treated better than 
I ever was in an American court in my life ; for 
I never got up in a court room in this country to 
give testimony or see a black man^ icho warnH 
rather laughed at by somebody. Well, when 
the Attorney Gineral had finished, three of 
these 'ere lords I tell on went into another 
room, and staved there a i^w minutes, and 



Thr sentence — the creic rcturnitd to the ship. \ 93 



come back, and then the chief lord of the es- 
tabUshment got up, and drew on a kind of a 
black cap, and commanded the attention of all 
present, and the room was so still you could 
hear a pin drop. The prisoner was fetched 
forward, and the Judge turns to him and 
says : — 

*' * By the testimony of Captain Truesdeli 
and crew, and by your own confession, I find 
you, accordin' to the laws of our king and 
country, guiUy of this murder ; and have you 
any thing to offer why sentence of death should 
not be pronounced upon you V The Spaniard 
shook his head, and then the Judge pronounced 
his doom. 

"' In the Name of the King of the Realm, 
and by the Authority of Almighty God, I sen- 
tence you to be executed this evening at half- 
past six o'clock, until you are dead^ dead, 
DEAD ; and may God have mercy on your 
soul.' 

"Well, the sheriff took the prisoner and 
ordered us to be sent back in a large carriage 
and four milk white horses to the ship. 

Next mornin' at ten o'clock the Spanish la- 
dy came aboard, and went down in the cabin 
with the captain, and sot there and talked a 
17 



194 Tlie execution— gd homa—'S.i'd for W-M Iniias. 



good while about the affair, and cried a a^ood 
deal, and when she got up she put her hand 
into her httle huzzy and took out twenty doub- 
loons, and give 'em to the captain, and told 
him to divide that with his crew, and she calls 
for me and gives me a half-joe, and says she, 
* I give you that for bein' so good as to find my 
darter,' and she went off, and I had a doub- 
loon and a half-joe, and that night we heard 
the Spaniard was hung. 

" Well, we lay in port about four weeks, 
and we had fine times and see a good many 
big characters, and I was in England arter 
this, and I see some of the biggest kind of 
bugs they got, and I'll tell about that when I 
git to it. Well, we took in a load of goods, 
and weighed anchor for home, and had as fine 
a passage as ever was sailed over the brine. 
We made New York and the hands was all 
paid off, and I had one hundred and sixty dol- 
lars in specie except a little on the Manhattan 
Bank. Then I quit Captain Truesdell, and 
he gin me a recommend, and I hired to Cap- 
tain James Williams, and we hadn't been in 
port but four weeks afore 1 sailed with him 
for Gaudaloupe. We started in November, 
on Sunday mornin' jist as the bells begun to 



Rock of GU)ralter a pokerish looking place. 195 

ring for church, and weighed anchor for the 
West Indies, and then I see the difference 
atwixt the sailor's Sunday and a Yorker's, 
and it made me feel kind'a serious and rother 
bad. 

" The captain had started on a tradin' and 
carryin' v'yge ; so when we'd cruised rouna 
some months in the West Indies, we took a 
load and sailed for Gibralter, and if that Gib- 
ralter warn't a pokerish lookin' place I never 
see one. We come into the bay and cast an- 
chor under the fort, and they fired three guns 
over our ship, as a shakin' hands, to let us 
know we was welcome, and then the captain 
and officers had to go ashore and account for 
themselves. As we lay there and looked up, 
we could see three tiers of cannon one above 
another, and soldiers with blue coats trimmed 
with red, and horseskin caps (as I calls them) 
paradin' there. And as soon as the captain 
got leave of tradin' back and forth from the 
governor, all these 'ere cannons was drawn 
back. 

" The English colors way fly in' from the 
top of the Rock, and at twelve o'clock every 
day the drums beat, and they played what they 
called ' The roast beef of old England.' In the 
mornin' the revelie beat and six cannon was 



] 90 African coast. 



fired from the fort, and if any armed ships lay 
in the harbor they answered 'em ; and every 
single hour in the night we could hear the sen- 
tinel's heavy tread on the Rock, and his cry, 
ten o'clock and all's well, eleven o'clock and 
all's well, &c., and so he kept it up all night. 
Some on 'em told me they'd had distressed 
times round the old Rock afore this. About 
the time of our Revolutionary War the 
French and Spaniards leagued together and 
got hundreds of ships and thousands of 
sogers together, and battered away at the 
old fort, and shot more red hot cannon balls 
agin it than you could shake a stick at ; 
but they only went ' bum, hum,' and shiver- 
ed the Rock a little, and fell down into the 
sea, and they attacked the fort on the land 
side and worked away there, day arter day, 
but they didn't hurt a hair of the old Rock's 
head, and finally they agreed to quit it. — Why 
Sir, all the nations on the globe could not take 
that fort. The English will always have it 
till the eend of the world. Well I looked up 
through the straits, and it did look beautiful ; 
I could see the African shore ; yis, the same 
Africa where so many millions of my poor 
brothers and sisters had been stole and carried 
off into slavery — oh ! I felt bad. Well, we 



Chased by a Privateer. 197 



sold our load of provisions to the governor of 
the Rock, and bought a few things and start- 
ed for England. 

" When we'd been out four days we was 
chased by a privateer, and once they got in a 
quarter of a mile on us, but we had the most 
canvass, and we histed the sky scrapers, moon 
rakers, and star gazers, and water sail, and a 
good wind. But they fired on us all the lime 
they was near enough. They chased us two 
days, and then we fell in with a French frigate, 
and they hailed us, and wanted to know if 
we'd seen a privateer along the coast, and so 
the captain told all about it and they gin three 
cheers and bore away arter her. 

" In a few hours we heard a dreadful can- 
nonadin', and a great cloud of smoke riz out 
of the sea, and we concluded they'd overhauled 
her, and we left her in good hands. We sail- 
ed on for Bristol, and arter we'd been there 
five days, the news come that a French frigate 
had captured a Spanish privateer, but didn't 
take any of her crew, for no sooner than they 
found themselves taken than they blew up their 
ship. 

" We stayed in Bristol some time, and start- 
ed at last for New York. On our passage out, 
17* 



198 -4 toreck — the phantom ship. 

we come across a wreck, and we sailed within 
forty rods on her, and sent out a small boat, 
and there warn't a livin' soul aboard to tell 
the story, and there she lay bottom side up, 
and as handsome a copper bottom as ever you 
see ; but we couldn't do any thing with her, 
and so we left her and sailed on. 

*' About a week arter, we was a sailin' along 
afore a pleasant breeze, and the moon shinin* 
on the waters, and they looked like melted sil- 
ver, the first thing we knew up come a seventy- 
four gun ship right alongside, her guns run 
out, and men standin' with burnin' torches jist 
ready to fire, and we felt streaked enough, for 
we expected to be blown up every minute, and 
there we stood a trembUn' and didn't dare to 
say one word ; and she passed right by and 
never fired a pistol, and in one minute she was 
out of sight — she come and she went and that's 
all you can say. Now that's what the sailors 
call ' the phantom ship.'' You see there's no 
ship about it, only some curious appearances 
on the sea, that always scares sailors, and 
makes them think they are a goin' to be cap- 
tured. Well, we had a fine v'yge home, and 
made the New York light the first of Novem- 
ber, arter a cruise of nearly twelve months. 



Pdcr in Ketc York. I99 



T didn't like Captain Williams, and I quit him, 
and he paid me off one hundred and fifteen 
dollars, and I had now two hundred and fifty 
dollars, and I kept it safe. And a part of the 
time I went round New York with a saw-buck 
on my shoulder, and part of the time I was a 
gentleman at large in the big city — and so I 
spent that winter. 



200 Pct^r hires out to Captain Bainhridge. 



CHAPTER III. 

Peter sails for Gibraltar with Captain Bainbridge — his char- 
acter — horrible storm — Henry falls from aloft and is killed 
— a funeral at sea — English lady prays — Gibralter and the 
landing of soldiers — a frigate and four merchantmen — Na- 
poleon — Wellington and Lord Nelson — a slave ship — her 
cargo — five hundred slaves — a wake of blood fifteen hun- 
dred miles — sharks eat 'em — Amsterdam — winter there — 
Captain B. winters in Bristol — Dutchmen — visit to an old 
battle field — stories about Napoleon — Peter falls overboard 
and is drowned, almost — make New York the fourth of 
July — Peter lends five hundred dollars and loses it — sails 
to the West Indies widi Captain Thompson — returns to 
New York and winters with Lady Rylander — sails with 
Captain Williams for Gibralter — fleet thirty-seven sail — 
cruise up the Mediterranean-^Mt. Etna—sails to Liverpool — 
Lord Wellington and his troops — war between Great Bri- 
tain and tlie United States — sails for New York and goes 
to sea no more — his own confessions of his character — 
dreadful wicked — sings a sailor song and winds up his yarn. 

Peter. " The next spring in the fore part of 
May, I saw Captain Bainbridge on the Batte- 
ry, and he hails me and says, ' don't you want 
a berth for a summer v'ge ? I says, ' yis Sir,' 
and then we bargains about wages ; and I 
was to have twenty-five dollars a month, and 



Sail to Gihraker. 201 



he told me to go to the Custom-house in the 
mornin' ; and so I did, and several others he'd 
seen, and we all hired out, and he gin me a 
steward's perquisites and twenty-five dollars a 
month. So we goes aboard his fine new ship 
jist built in New Bedford, and 'twas one of the 
best I ever see ; and she was to sail in a week 
on Monday, and all on us agreed to be aboard, 
by ten o'clock ; and by ten o'clock all on us was 
there to a man, and we received our orders, 
and they was mazin' strict, for he was the 
strictest captain I ever sailed under, but a fine 
feller with all — sound, good hearted and a hail 
feller well met. 

*'We all hands stood on deck, and a sight of 
passengers, and we'd bid our waives and sweet- 
hearts all farewell, and at twelve o'clock, noon, 
we weighed anchor for Gibralter. The pilot 
took us out to sea — she was a little steamboat, 
for only two or three years afore this, Fulton 
got his steamboat invented on the Hudson. 
Well she left us 'bout three o'clock and bid us 
all ' goodbye ;' and a nice evenin' breeze sprung 
up, and we spread all sail and cut the waves 
like any thing. And so 'bout midnight I goes 
on deck, and looked and looked ashore, but 
the shore of my country was hid, for weM 
moved on so brisk, it had disappeared. We 



202 A storm at sea. 



had a beautiful time till we'd sailed eight days ; 
and one day afterwards the breeze grew 
stronger, and the moon shone and played over 
the waters, till it looked like silver; and such 
an evenin' I hardly ever see be at sea. 

*' Well next day, at one o'clock, a dark aw- 
ful cloud riz up out of the northeast, and it got 
so the lightnin' played along the edge of the 
cloud pretty briskly afore it covered the sun. 
The thunder rattled like great chariots over a 
great stone pavement. Captain orders all 
hands to their posts, and begun to reef and 
make all fast, and cover the hatches, and pre- 
pare for a storm. Finally the cloud covered 
the whole face of the heavens, and the captain 
says ' attention all hands ! Now fellow sai- 
lors be brave, we've got a new ship and her 
riggin' will slack some, and we don't know 
how she'll work ; but stick to your posts, and 
by the help of God, we'll weather the storm.' 

*' Well the storm increased, and we kept a 
reefin' ; for you see I used to be 'bout as much 
of a sailor as any on 'em, and in a storm there 
warn't much to be cooked till 'twas over. 
And I quit the caboose, and was in the riggin' 
and all round the sap works till it abated. 
While we was a takin' a double reef on the 



A cahin hoy falls from aloft, and is killed. 203 

main sail of the mizzen mast, there was a boy 
by the name of Henry Thomson, the captain's 
boy, who went up aloft with an old sailor, to 
larn to take a reef-plat, and by misfortune, 
one of the foot-ropes gin way, and the little fel- 
ler /d^// and struck on the quarter-deck raliin', 
and left part of his brains there, and his body 
went overboard ; and w^e was agoin' so fast, 
we couldn't 'bout and get him, and we had to 
leave the poor feller to find companions in the 
deep. Oh ! he icas a noUe hoy and I felt so 
arter it, that I always thought of this varse of 
an old sailor song. 

* Days, months, years, and ages, shall circle away, 
And still the vast waters above thee shall roll, 

Earth loses thy pattern, for ever and aye. 

Oh ! sailor boy ! sailor boy! peace to thy soul.' 

*' Well we sailed on, and the storm increas- 
ed till midnight; and oh ! how the ocean did 
look ! It seemed as though it was all a blaze 
of fire, and the vship couldn't keep still one se- 
cond. She pitched and tumbled about like a 
drunken man, and yit every thing held as strong 
as iron ; and so 'bout one o'clock at night, 
the storm passed ofl:' 'bout as quick as it had 
come, and as soon as any light appeared in 



204 -^i funeral at sea — « lady prays. 



the heavens, the captain says, ' cheer up boys! 
the storm is agoin' over and all hands to bimlcy 
only the watch.' 

" In the mornin' it was as clear and pleasant 
as clear could be, only the sea was dreadful 
rough ; for you know it takes the sea a good 
while to git calm arter a storm ; but we gits 
breakfast and she grows kind'a calmish, and 
then the captain comes on deck and tells one 
of the hands to go and git a canvass sack and 
sow it up, and put a stick in it, and a cannon 
ball at each eend ; and then he orders a plank 
lashed to the side of the ship, with one eend 
slantin' down to the water, and calls ' all hands 
'tention,' and then asks, ' is there any body- 
aboard that feels as though he could pray?* 
And it was as still as death, and all looked at 
one another, and nobody answered ; for you 
see in all that company of 'bout fifty, nobody 
could pray to his God. And all was av.ful, for 
I tell ye what 'tisDomine, it's a pretty creepy 
feelin' gits hold on a body, if they knows that 
nobody round 'em can pray !.=^ 

" But in the suspense there steps out an el- 
derly English lady, and she said ' Let us pray ! 
Oh ! thou who stillest the waves, ifec' And so 
she went on and if she didn't make the best 



A funeral at sea — a lady prnys. 20i> 

prayer I ever heard afore or since, and she 
made a beautiful address to us, and she did talk 
enough to move the heart of a stone, and with 
tears in her eyes ; and she reproved us for 
^weariti' so. And while she was a talkin' and 
prayin' so, there lay the like of that beautiful 
boy cold in death, and I tell ye it made us cry 
some dLudfcel a good deal. Well we made as 
though we put Henry in that sack, and put 
him on the plank, and let him slide off into the 
ocean, and when he sunk it seemed as though 
my heart went into the sea arter him. 

" Well the spot where his brains lay there 
on the deck, stayed there as long as I stayed 
aboard that ship ; and I used to stand there 
and watch it at evenin', and cry and cry; and 
I guess if all the tears I shed had been catched, 
they'd a filled a quart cup ; but I couldn't help 
it, for he was a noble boy, and I loved him like 
a brother. But we sailed on and left Henry 
behind us, and the thoughts on him sometimes 
checked our glee and sin, but only for a little 
while, and all on board soon forgot him, only 
me. But oh ! how I did love that boy.c^ 

"Well we made Gibralter in thirty-six days 
from New York, and as we lowered sail and 
cast anchor under the old fort, they fired six 
18 



206 Tears over Henry's memory — old Gihr alter. 



cannon over our mast, and the English officer 
comes aboard, and three of his aids, and the 
ship and cargo and all her writings was ex- 
amined, and findin' all right side up, he gin us 
permission to come ashore and do business ; 
and the governor bought our load of provisions 
for the navy sarvice, and we got an extra price 
'case 'twas scarce ; and while we lay there, 
there was four English gun-ships of the line 
come in freighted with soldiers from Plymouth, 
in England, and they was under the convoy of 
Admiral Emmons; and they left their soldiers 
and took some on the rock, and when they 
come in sight, if there warn't some music and 
some smoke. All the instruments used in the 
English navy was played on the ships, and they 
fired gun arter gun, from the ships to the fort, 
and the fort to the ships, and every round 
they fired, they beat the English revelie, and 
oh ! how them cannon shook the ship under us, 
and the smoke was so thick, you could fairly 
cut it ; and so they kept it up, and I tell ye 
they had jolly times enough. 

*' Next day they begun to land their recruits, 
rank and file by companies, and as one compa- 
ny from the ship marched up the rock to the 
top of the fort, another company from the rock 



Music and smoke from the old fort. ^07 

would march down aboard the ship, and in this 
way we see a heap on 'em landed and shipped. 
And there stood the Royal band all day in plain 
sight ; and they was all colored folks, and thei/ 
felt good tu, and every time they landed they'd 
fire a broadside from the fort, and shelter 'em 
with smoke; and every time a company of the 
fort's soldiers come aboard the ship, they'd co- 
ver 'em with smoke ; and put it all together, 
it was by all odds the handsomest sight I ever 
see in my travels. 

*' Well, two days arter this, 'bout nine 
o'clock in the morning, the cannon begun to 
blaze away from the old fort agin', and we 
concluded we was agoin' to have some more 
doin's, and I up on deck and looked and looked, 
and bim'by I see a large frigate comin' up 
leadin' four merchantmen with flying colors, 
and she blazed back agin', and when she got 
into the harbor, the seventy-fours in port open- 
ed their mouths agin', and so we had it pretty 
lively. 

*' These merchantmen were loaded with 
provisions for the navy ; oh ! what a heap of 
folks there was in that Rock ! ! Our captain 
says * boys, they've bought our cargo, but I 
don't s'pose 'twould make a mouthful apiece 



208 -^ ghnce at the war of the peninstda. 

for 'em.' And what an expensive establishment 
that English army and navy is ! 

*' We stayed there at the Rock a good while, 
and these merchant vessels went out under the 
the protection of these navy ships, to victual the 
English fleet there ; and we heard a good deal 
'bout Napoleon and Lord Welhngton. They 
was all the talk, and Wellington was all the 
toast ; and their armies was a shakin' the whole 
'arth, and ships and armies agoin' and comin' 
all the time ; and there Lord Nelson, he was at 
the head of the English navy, and he was a 
great toast ; and every day the papers would 
come and fetch stories of battles on land and at 
sea, till I was as sick on 'em as I could be. It 
seemed to be nothin' but a story of blood all the 
time ; and Europe and all the ocean was only 
jist a great buryin' and murderin' ground ; and, 
for my part, I never thought much of these 'ere 
great wholesale murderers, as I calls Bonaparte, 
Wellington, and Lord Nelson, and sich like sort 
of fellers. Why, Domine, I should think, from 
all accounts I heard at the time, and arter it, 
that they must have killed all of five miUions of 
folks, in all that fightin' agin Napoleon. Oh! 
it's a cruel piece of business to butcher folks so • 
and yit, nevertheless, notwithstanding, them 



Port Antonio — a slaver — board her. 209 

same men ivas toasted, and 6e-toasted now all 
over the world, and it makes me sick of human 
natur' ; and if I am a black man, I hate to see 
respectable people act so. 

"Finally, arter a long stay, we hauled up 
anchor for Port Antonio. One day a man 
aloft cries out ' ship ahoy.' The captain looks 
through his big glass and says, ' bear down on 
her helmsman ;' and when we got nigh 'nough, 
the captain hails her ; ' what ship f 

*' ' Torpedo.' 

" 'What captain?' 

" ' Trumbull.' 

" ' Where from f 

*' ' African coast.' 

" ' Where bound ?' 

" * America.' 

'* * Can I come on board you .^' 

*' * Yes.' 

*' So he bears down and lays too, and I, 
'mong the rest, went aboard. The captain 
treats us very genteel ; and when they'd finished 
drinkin' Captain Trumbull orders the hatch 
open, and I looked down, and to my sad sur- 
prise I see 'twas crowded with slaves. The first 
thing I see was a colored female, as naked as 
she was born into the world, and she looked up 
18» 



210 -4 description of a slave ship. 



at me with a pitiful look ; and an iron band 
went round her leg, and then she was locked 
to an iron bolt that went from one eend of the 
ship to the other ; and there was Jive hundred 
slaves doicn in that hole; men, women, and 
children, all chained down there, and among 
'em all not one had a rag of clothes on, — and 
not a bit of daylight entered, only that hatch- 
way, and then only when they opened it to 
throw out the dead ones, or else feed 'em ; and 
when I put my head over the hole, a steam 
come out strong 'nough to knock down a horse, 
for there they was in their own filth, and oh ! 
how they did smell. There was several wo- 
men that had jist had children, and a good 
many sick, and there they was, and oh I what 
a sight, — some on 'em was cryin' and talkin' 
among themselves, but I couldn't understand a 
word they said ; and there was a parcel of 
leetle fellers, that was from two to ten years 
old, a runnin' round 'mong 'em, and some on 
'em was dead, and you could hear the dpjt' 
groans of others. Oh! I never did think a 
body of folks could suffer so and live. Why, 
how do you think they sat ? They all sat down 
with their legs straddled out right up close 
agin' one another, and they couldn't stir only 
one arm and hand, ybr all else was chained. 



800 slaves — a wake of bbodfor 1500 miles. 211 

" I felt worse, I *spose, and it was entirely 
more heart-rendin' to me, because they was 
my own species; they warn't only human bein's 
but Africans. ^^ Oh ! if I didn't hate sla- 
very arter this worse than ever ; why ! it seemed 
to me a thousand times worse than it ever did 
afore, when I was a slave myself. 

" Well, the captain said he started with 
eight hundred, and three hundred had died on 
the v'yge!.,,/^ and he'd only been out ten days, 
and that's mor'n one an hour; and that he 
had to keep one hand in there nigh upon half 
the time, to knock off the chains from the dead 
ones, and pitch 'em upon deck ; and, says he, 
I have left a wake of blood fifteen hundred 
miles ; for, no sooner than I fling one out 
than a shark flies at him and colors all the 
water with blood in less than one minute ; why, 
says he, ' a shoal of sharks follows our slave 
ships clear from Africa to America ! !' Oh! 
my soul, if there is one kind of wickedness greater , 
ami worsevj and viler, and more devilish and 
cusseder than any other, it is sich business. „/][) 

" The slave captain asked our captain if he 
thought he could git into America? He told 
him he didn't think he could. ' How long do 



212 Captain Bainhndge's advice to the slave captain 

you calculate to be in that business?' says Cap- 
tain Bainbridge.' 

"I can't tell, Sir.' 

*"Well,' Sir, says our captain, as he left the 
ship, ' I advise you to clear up your ship when you 
git into port, and quit that cussed traffic, and 
go aboard a merchantman, and be a gentle- 
man.' * And he didn't like it nother' ! t Well, 
we left, and boarded our own ship ; but that 
scene of blood I couldn't forgit ! I could see 
them poor crutters, for a good many days, in 
my thoughts and dreams ; and sometimes I could 
see 'em jist as fresh and sorrowful as ever. 
Hundreds and hundreds of poor slaves, now at 
the South, are their descendants ; and, like 

enough, you see some on 'em Mr. L. , when 

you was at the South; and I know how to pity 
the descendants of them that's fetched over in 
slave ships, for one of my grandfathers was 



* All over the world slavery, in all its forms, is repugnant 
and offensive to noble and generous feeling : and every where, 
in all ages and nations, oppression and this unholy traffic meet 
witii a just rebuke. Man's better feeling will revolt from 
crueltv and injustice until they are extinguished. 

t Of course he didn't "like it." It never did please the devil 
to be reproved of his evil deeds. It don't please Southern 
•oul-dealers and soul-drivers to be rebuked. 



Make Antonio — sail for Amsterdam. 213 

fetched out in one, as I told you in the begin- 
nin' on my story. 

*' Well, we made Port Antonio in three 
weeks, and stayed there thirteen days, and got 
a cargo, and then the captain says 'boys, we 
shall have a rough passage home, if we go this 
fall, it's so late, for we stayed a good while 
over the brine, and now who will hold up hands 
for staying till next spring ?' 

*' So all on us up with both hands, and we 
hauled up anchor for Amsterdam — that's in 
the Dutch country — and we made port in four 
weeks ; and when we'd been there 'bout a fort- 
night, the captain got a letter from his uncle, 
James Bainbridge, who was in Bristol, and 
wanted him to come there and winter with him, 
for he was a sea captain, tu. So he leaves his 
ship in our hands, and makes the first mate 
captain, and we had to obey all his orders ; and 
the captain starts and says, ' farewell boys, 
keep ship safe till you see me, and I'll write to ye 
often, and let 3'ou know how I cut my jib.' And 
we see no more on him till airly next spring. 

" Well, we had all the fun on shore and 
aboard we could ask for. White and black, 
we was all hail fellers, well met. We used to 
have a heap of visiters aboard, to hear 'bout 



214 JVinter amusements among the Dutchmen. 

America. We'd have an interpreter to tell 
our stories, and almost make some of them 
smoking, thick-skulled Dutchmen b'lieve that 
America flowed with milk and honey, and that 
pigs run 'round the streets here with knives 
and forks in their backs, cryin' out ' eat me.' 
I used to be a pretty slick darkey for fixin' out 
a story, tu, and a big one 'bout America ; and 
then some white man would set by my side and 
put the edge on, and 'twould go without any 
greasin'; and the captain used to say, always, 
that if any deviltry was agoin' on, Pete was 
always sure to have a finger in the pie. Well, 
we used to talk a considerable 'bout the wars 
they was a havin' in the old countries, at that 
time, and they said they could take us up to a 
place, a few miles from there, where there had 
been a great battle, sometime afore ; and for 
curiosity, we all went up to see it. Well, we 
goes, and finds thirty or forty acres, and there 
wasn't a green thing on it, and 'twas covered 
with bones and skulls, and all kinds of balls 
and spikes, and bayonets, and whole heaps of 
bones, and I guess you never see so melancholy 
a place in all your life. Oh ! it made me sick 
of war to see thousands and thousands of hu- 
man bein's a bleachin' on the sand. And it 



Napoleon — Peter knocked overboard. 215 

seemed that the ground where that battle was 
fit, wouldn't let any green thing grow there, 
and I don't b'lieve any green thing grows there 
till this day. And there we was, a hearin' 
every day 'bout Bonaparte, and his killin' 
his thousands, and his takin' this city and that 
city, and his conquerin' this gineral and that 
gineral ; but Lord Wellington give him a tough 
heat on the land, and Lord Nelson on the sea ; 
but the world see terrible sorry times for a few 
years, while that Napoleon was a runnin' his 
career. 

" Well, captain got back to Amsterdam the 
first of April, and on the fourteenth we weigh- 
ed anchor for New York. Well, come the 
sixth day I guess, at evenin' arter I'd done all 
my work, and was a settin' on the railin' roth- 
er carelessly, the boom jibed and struck me on 
the top of my head, and the first I knew I was 
pitched head first into the brine. I fell into 
the wake and swum as fast as I could, and 
when I riz on the wave I could see the ship 
and her lights, and then when I went down in 
the troughs I lost sight of her, and I begun to 
feel kind'a streakish I tell ye. But pretty soon 
a rope struck me on the head, and I grabbed 
and hung on, and the hands aboard drew, and 



216 Fourth of July in Ncic York. 

finally I got up pretty near, and the first I 
knew, and 'bout the last I knew, a wave come 
and plunged me head first right agin the starn, 
and that made all jar agin' and I see mor'u 
fifty tliousand stars; but I hung on, and they 
drawed me up aboard, and when I come fairly 
tu, the captain comes along and says : — 
u I ]>,'jg ? where you ben ?' 
*' ' Ben a fishin'. Sir.' 

*' ' Yis, and if you'd come across a good 
shark, you'd catched a nice fish wouldn't you ?' 
*' And when he spoke 'bout that, it scart me, 
for I begun to realize my danger, and I begun 
to be afeard when 'twas tu late, and I trembled 
jist like a leaf. 

" But I'll hurry on. We made the New 
York light after a long v'yge, and was kept on 
quarantine a good while, and on the mornin' 
of the fourth of July, when the bells was a 
ringin', and the boats was a flyin' through the 
bay, and the guns from the Battery and Hobo- 
ken was a soundin' along the bosom of the 
Hudson, all independence ; and we landed and 
jumped ashore, and I think I never in all my 
life felt sich a kind of a gush of joy rush through 
all my soul, as I did when I heard them bells 
ring, and them guns roar; and this free nigger 



P tier sails for West Indies. 217 

jumped ashore and celebrated independence 
as loud as any body. 

" The captain paid us all off, and as I left 
him, I said I'd never go to sea agin, but that 
didn't make it so ; for I hadn't been ashore a 
month, afore I vvas off agin with Captain 
George Thomson. Then I had five hundred 
dollars — three hundred Spanish mill dollars, 
and two hundred on the Manhattan Bank, and 
I had as good a wardrobe of clothes, both citi- 
zen's and sailor's as any other feller. Captain 
Thomson finds out I'd got this money, and 
says he, ' you better not be a lugging your mo- 
ney round from port, let it out and git the in- 
terest on it ;' and so he showed me a rich man, 
Mr. Leacraft, that wanted it, and he gin me 
two notes of two hundred and fifty dollars, for 
one and two years, and I counted out my mo- 
ney ; and we sailed for the West Indies. Well, 
we got there and took in a heavy cargo of gro- 
ceries, and 'bout for home. But 'twas late in 
the season, and we had cold blusterin' weather, 
and finally it grew so cold the rain froze on 
the riggin' ; and the captain says, ' we can't 
make New York,' and the mate says, ' we 
can ; and so we sailed on till we made the 
New York light, and we was all covered with 
19 



218 Disappointment — Peter loses $500 — his all. 

ice ; and the captain says, *boys we shall git 
stove to pieces, for we can't manage our rig- 
gin', and we must put back.' So we did, into 
a warmer climate, and in two or three days 
the riggin' grew limber, and the ice all drop- 
ped off, and it grew warmer and warmer, till 
at last we was in a region like our Ingen 
summer. 

" Well, we'd been out a week, and Cap- 
tain Woods, north from Bristol hailed us, and 
asked how the entrance was to T^ew York. 
Our captain told him he couldn't get in, but 
he swore he would, and on he sailed, and he'd 
been gone ten days, and he come back a cus- 
sin' and swearin', and had three of his men 
froze to death. We stay'd out four weeks 
longer, and was nearly out of provisions, and 
obliged to make port ; and it moderated a 
leetle, and finally, arter some trouble, we 
reached home, and a gladder set of fellers you 
never did see. 

" Well, we got paid off, and I jumped 
ashore, and says I, * I'll stay here now ; and 
here's what's off to Lady Rylander's, and the 
rest of the season I'll play the gentleman, for 
I'm sick of the brine, and I've got money 
enough to make a dash in the world.' I'd no 



His gricf—icrong step. 219 

sooner got ashore, than a friend of mine comes 
lip, and says, 'Pete, you've lost all your mo- 
ney.' * That can't be possible,' says I. ' Yis, 
Pete, Leacraft is twenty thousand dollars 
worse than nothin'. Well, I was thunder- 
struck, and goes up to see him. Leacraft 
says, ' to be sure I am Peter, all broke down ; 
but if God spares my life, you shall have every 
dollar that's your due.' 

" But up to this hour Ihavn't got a cent on 
it. Captain Thomson tried and tried to git it 
for me, but all to no purpose; and I grieved 
and passed sorrowful days and nights I tell ye ; 
for I'd worked in heat and cold, and in all 
climates and countries for it, and thought now 
I should be able to begin life right, and 'twas 
all struck from me at a blow, and 'twas almost 
like takin' life I tell ye. 

"And now I 'spose I took a wrong step. — 
One day I was in a grog shop with some of 
my companions, and I took a wicked oath, and 
flung down my money on the counter to pay 
for our wine, and says I, * hereafter, no man 
shall run away with the price of my labor, and 
if I have ten dollars, Fll spend, here she goes,' 
and down went my rhino, and in ten days I had 
spent all the pay of my last v'yge j and then I 



220 Sails for Gibraltar. 

goes to Madam Rylander and hires out for 
sixteen dollars a month as her body sarvant. 
Not a finer lady ever set foot in Broadway ; 
and she was as pleasant as the noonday sun, 
and if her sarvants did wrong, she'd call 'em 
up and discharge 'em, all pleasant, but firm ; 
and she'd encourage me to be economical and 
good, and I liked her, but I hadn't got my fill 
of the brine yit, and so I thought I'd out on 
the waves agin. You see I'd been a slave so 
long that I was jist like a bird let out of her 
cage, and I couldn't be satisfied without I was 
a flyin' all the time, and besides there was 
great talk about a war with John Bull, and I 
liked it all the better for that ; and so I told 
Lady Rylander I must be oflT, and she offered 
me higher wages, but all that wouldn't do ; I 
was bound for the brine and must go. 

" I hired out to Captain Williams agin, as 
steward, for thirty-one dollars a month; and we 
weighed anchor for St. Domingo ; and we took 
a load of goods from there and started for the 
Rock of Gibralter once more. On our pas- 
sage, we was overhauled by an equinoctial 
storm, and we had a distressed bad time, and 
it did seem that we must go to the bottom for 
days. Wc fell in with a fleet of thirty-seven 



TAe Tempest. 221 



sail from the West Indies, under the convoy 
of two English frigates, for London. You see 
these ships was merchantmen, and the Eng- 
lish Admiral had sent out two frigates to pro- 
tect 'em ; for England and France was at war, 
and they'd seize each other's commerce, and 
their governments had to protect 'em. When 
we got in haihn' distance of the frigates, cap- 
tain cries out, ' how long do you think the 
storm will last r' ' Can't say — all looks bad 
now ; two of our vessels have gone to pieces, 
and every soul lost.' And while we was talk- 
in' the seas broke over us like roUin' moun- 
tains ; we couldn't lay into the wind at all, and 
we had to let her fly, and we went like a streak 
of greased lightnin', and we soon lost sight on 
'em ; and I tell you 'twas a melancholy sight 
to see sick a ^ee^ strugglin' loithsich a tempest; 
but we had all we could attend to at home, 
without borryin' trouble from abroad. But 
we finally conquered the storm, and dropped 
anchor under the old fort agin. We lay in the 
basin two days, and then got liberty from the 
governor to go up the straits, and we calcula- 
ted to run up to Egypt, and we cleared the 
straits and went into the Mediterranean ; and 
19* 



222 Mount Etna. 



then we was on what our college-larnt fellers 
calls classic ground. 

" One day the captain calls me on deck and 
says, ' Nig, do you see that city up the coast f 

" ' Yis, Sir.' 

*' * Well, that's the spot you sing so much 
about ; now let's have it ; strike up, Nig.' 

*' So up 1 struck : — 

" * To Carthagena we was bound, 
With a sweet and lively gale,' &c. 

" And I was glad enough to see my old port 
I'd celebrated so long in my songs. Well, we 
sailed along and had the finest time ever one 
set of fellers had— the air was as soft as you 
please, and the islands was as thick as buck- 
kle-berries, and of all kinds and sizes. We 
sailed on by one island, and then by another, 
and bim'by Mount Etna hove in sight, while 
we was a hangin' oft' the coast of Sicily, and 
'twas rocky, and we couldn't hug the shore 
very close ; but we had a fine sight of the vol- 
cano ; and there was a steady stream of fire 
and smoke come out of the top of the moun- 
tain, and in the night it was a big sight. It 
flung a kind of a flickerin' light over the sea , 



Good night to the Fort. 2*23 

and we stayed in sight of it some time ; and dis- 
posed of our load pretty much, and got back to 
the fort in just eighteen days. We cleared the 
old Rock the next arternoon ; and I said * good 
night,' to the old fort, and I hain't seen her 
from that day to this. 

" We sailed round Cape St. Vincent, off the 
coast of Portugal, and then crossed the Bay of 
Biscay, O ! and passed Land's Eend — up St. 
George's Channel, and through the Irish Sea, 
and, on the eighteenth day, dropped anchor in 
the harbor of Liverpool. 

"The captain calculated to stay in Liver- 
pool till spring, for 'twas now November, and 
trade a good deal, and bring home a heavy 
cargo of English goods ; but for sartin reasons, 
I'll tell soon, we didn't do it. While we lay in 
Liverpool, there was some great (loin's, I tell 
ye. The English troops, to the amount of 
some thousands, marched out under Lord Wel- 
lington, for foreign sarvice on the continent, 
and soon arter this Wellington went to fightin' 
in Spain. Well, they marched out under su- 
perior officers, and in the middle of the troops 
was Wellington's carriage, drawn by six milk- 
white horses, splendidly caparisoned, and he 
was in it, and three or four other big lords ; 



22 1 '^«^ — sail home. 



and, on each side of the carriage was six offi- 
cers, on jet black horses, with drawn swords, 
and they made some noise tu ; and I shall re- 
member, to my dyin' day, how Wellington 
looked. 

" But we hadn't been there long afore the 
captain comes down one night from the city, 
aboard ship, and calls out to all the crew, and, 
says he, ' boys there's agoin' to be war betwixt 
Great Britain and America, and all that wants 
to clear port to night, and spread our sails for 
New York, say home !' and we did say home, 
in arnesf, and w^e made all preparation, and 
'bout midnight we weighed anchor, and towed 
ourselves out as still as we could, and I never 
worked so hard while I was free as I did that 
night, and by daylight we spread all our sails 
for home, and in four hours we was out of sight 
of Liverpool. Arter breakfast we all give 
three cheers, and all hands says, * now we are 
bound for home, sweet home!' 

" Well, we had been out 'bout four days, and 
we fell in with Commodore Somebody's ship, that 
pioneered a fleet of merchantmen for London ; 
they hailed us, and we answered the signal and 
passed on, and they let us go by peaceable, 
without a w^ord of war or peace, on either side ; 



Blood— battle, &fi 



and glad 'nough we was to pass 'em so, and we 
spread all our sails for America, and felt thank- 
ful for every breeze that helped us forward. 

'' Well, we had a quick passage, and made the 
New York light, and I never was so glad to 
see that light-house in my life, for we expected 
to git overhauled by an English man-of-war or 
a privateer every day. Well, we got in the 
last of March, and this was 1812; and well we 
did, for the first of April an embargo was laid 
on all the vessels in the ports of the United 
States, and the nineteenth of June war was de- 
clared agin Great Britain, and then the Atlan- 
tic was all a blaze of fire. 

" Captain Williams quit his ship, and took 
a privateer, and he tried to git me 'long with 
him, and I thought I would, for a while, but, 
finally, I concluded I wouldn't, for I was too 
much afeared of them ^ere blue plums that Jleio 
so thick across the brine for two or three 
years. .^ 

"Well, captain went out and was gone 
thirty days, and come back, and his success 
was so good that his common hands shared five 
hundred dollars apiece, and if I'd a gone, I 
should have had my five hundred dollars back 
agin ; but I'd no idee of going to be shot at for 



226 Hig cuffee ^nough icithout hein' shot at. 

money, like these 'ere fools and gumps thai 
goes down to the Florida swamps, to be shot 
at all day by Ingens, for eighteen pence a day. 
Captain met me one day in the street, and says 
he, ' nig, if you'd only gone with me, you'd a 
been as big a cuffee now as any on 'em/ I 
says * captain, I don't care 'bout havin' my 
head shot off of my shoulders ; I'm big cuffee 
'nough now!' 

" Well, I didn't go to sea durin' the war, 
and afore we got through with that, I got off of 
the notion of goin' at all, and I concluded I'd 
spend the rest of my days on ' terra firma,' as 
I'd been tossed round on the brine long 'nough, 
and satisfied myself with seein' and travel, and 
so I stayed, and I han't been out of sight of land 
ever sence. 

" But, one dreadful thing happened to me 
by goin' to sea, — / got dreadfully depraved; 
and I b'lieve there warn't a man on the globe 
that would swear worse than I would, and a 
wickeder feller didn't breathe than Pete Wheel- 
er. No language was too vile or wicked for 
me to take into my mouth ; and it did seem to 
me, when I thought about it, that I blasphemed 
my Maker almost every minute through the 
day ; and I used to frequent the theatre, and 
all bad places, and drink till I was dead drunk 



Peter's description of his own cliaractc.r. 227 

for days ; and nobody can bring a charge agin 
me for hardly one sin but murder and counter- 
feitin' that I ain't guilty on. When I thought 
'bout it, I used to think it the greatest wonder 
on 'arth that God Almighty didn't cut me off 
and strike me to hell, for I desarved the deep- 
est damnation in pardition ; and if any man on 
'arth says I didn't, why, all I have to say to 
sich a man is, that he ain't a judge. Why, as 
for prayer J I never thought of sich a thing for 
years ; and as for Sabbath day, I didn't hardly 
know when it come, only I used to be on a frolic 
or spree on that day, worse than any other day 
in the week. As for the bible, why, for years 
and years I never see one, or heard one read ; 
and I didn't, at that time, know how to read 
myself a word ; and for six years I never had a 
word said to me 'bout my soul, or the danger 
of losin' my soul, and I become as much of a 
heathen as any man in the Hottentot country : 
and the truth is, no man can make me out so 
bad as I raly was, for besides all I acted outy 
there was a hell in my bosom all the time, and 
these outrageous things was only a little bilin' 
over, — only a few leetle streams that run out of 
a black fountain-head. 

"Oh! Mr. L. , I don't know what I 



228 Causes oftlie depravity of sailors. 



should do at the judgment day, if I couldn't 
liavc a Saviour. I know I shall have a blacker 
account than a'most any body there, and how 
can it all be blotted out, except by Christ's 
blood? 

" AVhy, Sir, you can't tell how wicked sailors 
generally be. There aint more'n one out of a 
hundred that cares any thing 'bout religion, 
and they are head and ears in debauchery and 
intemperance, and gamblin', and all kinds of 
sin, and oh ! 'twould make your heart ache to 
hear their oaths. I've seen 'em tremble, and 
try to pray durin' a dreadful storm, and all 
looked like goin' to the bottom — for I don't 
care how heathenish and devilish any body is, 
if they see death starin' on 'em in the face, and 
they'spect to die in a few minutes, he'll cry to 
God for help — but no sooner than the storm 
abated they'd cuss worse than ever. Now this 
was jist my fashion, and if any body says that 
a man who abuses a good God like that don't 
desarve to be cut off and put into hell, why then 
he han't got any common sense. 

" But all this comes pretty much from the 
officers. I never knowed but one sea captain 
but what would swear sometimes, and most all 
on 'em as fast as a dog can trot ; and jist so 



Conclusion. 229 



sure as our officers swears, the hands will blas- 
pheme ten times worse ; and if the captain 
wouldn't swear, and forbid it on board, his 
orders would be obeyed like any other orders, 
but, as long as officers swears, so long will 
sailors. .-^ 

"But sailors have some noble things about 
'em as any body of men. They will always 
stand by their comrades in the heart of danger 
or misfortune, or attack ; and if a company on 
'em are on shore, you touch one you touch the 
whole ; and if a sailor was on the Desert of 
Arabia, and hadn't but a quart of water, he'd 
go snacks with a companion. They are sure 
to have a soft spot in their hearts somewhere, 
that you can touch if you can git at it, and when 
they feel, they feel with all their souls. But, 
arter all, ifs the ruination of men's characters to 
go to sea, for they become heathens, and gine- 
rally, ain't fit for sober life arter it, and ten to 
one they ruin their souls. 

" But my v'yges are finished, and I'll sing 
you one sailor's song, and then my yarn is 
done." 

Author. "Well, strike up, Peter." 



Peter sings — 



20 



230 Peter sings a sailor'' s song. 



"THE SAILOR'S RETURN. 

" Loose every sail to the breeze, 
The course of my vessel improve ; 

I've done with the toil of the seas, 
Ye sailors I'm bound to my love. 

Since Solena's as true as she's fair. 
My grief I fling all to the wind ; 

'Tis a pleasing return for my care, 
My mistress is constant and kind. 

My sails are all filled to my dear ; 

What tropic birds swifter can move ; 
Who, cruel, shall hold his career. 

That returns to the nest of his love 1 

Hoist ev'ry sail to the breeze, 

Come, shipmates, and join in the song; 
Let's drink, while our ship cuts the seas, 

To the gale that may drive her along. 

I've reached, spite of tempests, the port, 
Now I'll fly to the arms of my love ; 

And, rather than reef I will court, 
And win my beautiful dove." 



END OF THE SECOND BOOK. 



BOOK THE THIRD. 



PETER WHEELER AT THE CROSS. 

INSCRIBED 

To the Free People of Color in the Free States, 

Dear Friends : 

I inscribe this Book to you, for seve- 
ral reasons. I love you, and feel anxious to 
have you become intelligent and virtuous. I 
know that there are only a few books adapted 
to your taste and acquirements ;and I have had 
my eye upon your good in writing this history. 
I have thought you would understand it a great 
deal better if it was told in Peter's own lan- 
guage, and so I wrote it just as he told it. I 
I hope you will read it through, and follow 
Peter to the Lamb of God who taketh away 
the sin of the world. And if you are oppressed 
by the strong arm of power, and kept down by 



232 Drdkathm. 



an unholy and cruel prejudice, forget it and 
forgive it all, and go to that blessed Redeemer 
who came to save your souls, that he might 
clothe you, at last, with clean white linen, which 
is the righteousness of the saints. 



»■ 



Your friend, 

THE AUTHOR. 



A slick darkey — Mulain Rylanier and ]\Lister Macy. 233 



CHAPTER I. 

Lives at Madam Rylander's — Quaker Macy — Susan a colored 
girl lives with Mr. Macy--she is kidnapped and carried away, 
and sold into slavery — Peter visits at the " Nixon's, mazin' 
respectable" colored people in Philadelphia — falls in love 
with Solena — gits the consent of old folks — fix wedding day 
— " ax parson" — Solena dies in his arms — his grief — com- 
pared with Rhoderic Dhu — lives in New Haveu — sails 
for New York — drives hack — Susan Macy is redeemed 
from slavery — she tells Peter her atory of blood and horror, 
and abuse, and the way she made her escape from her 
chains. 

Author. " AVell, Peter, what did you go 
about when you quit the seas f" 

Peter. " The year I quit the seas, I went to 
live with Madam Rylander, and stayed with 
her a year, and she gin me twenty-five dol- 
lars a month, and I made her as slick a darkey 
as ever made a boot shine, and she was as fine 
a lady as ever scraped a slipper over Broadway. 
While I lived there, I used to visit at Mr. John 
Macy's, a rich qiiaker who lived in Broad- 
way, across from old St. Paul's. There 

was a colored girl lived with his family, by the 
20* 



234 Susan Macy h'ulnapped and sold intoslaoery. 

name of Susan, and they called her Susan 
Macy ; she was handsome and well edicated 
tu, and brought up like one ofhis own children ; 
and they thought as much on her as one of 
their daughters, and she was as lovely a dis- 
positioned gal as ever I seed ; and I enjoyed 
her society mazinly. 

" Well, one mornin' she got up and went to 
her mistress' bedroom, and asked her what 
she'd have for breakfast — * Veal cutlet' says 
she; and the old man says, ' Thee'U find money 
in the sideboard to pay for it ;' and she did, and 
took her basket and goes to the market a 
singin' along as usual — she was a great hand 
to sing ; and gits her meat, and on her return, 
she meets a couple of gentlemen, and one had 
a bundle, and says he, ' Girl if you'll take this 
bundle down to the wharf, I'll give you a silver 
dollar ; and she thought it could do no harm, 
and so she goes with it down to the ship they 
described, and as she reached out the bun- 
dle, a man catched her and hauled her aboard 
and put her down in the hole. 

" Her master and mistress got up and wait- 
ted and waited, and she didn't come ; and they 
went and sarched the street, and finds the bas- 
ket, but nothin' could be heard of Susan in the 



Peter visits Philadelphia and fulls dead in love. 235 

whole city ; and they finally gin up that she 
was murdered. 

" Well, I'll tell you the rest of the story, for 
I heard on her arter this. 

*'I stayed my year out with Madam Rylan- 
der, and then I quit ; and she wasdespod anx- 
ious to keep me, but I had other fish to fry, and 
took a notion I'd drive round the country and 
play the gentleman. 

" I come across, in New York, a young fel- 
ler of color, his parents very respectable folks 
who lived in Philadelphia ; and they took an 
anxious notion for me to go home with 'em ; 
and I started with 'em for Philadelphia ; and I 
had as good clothes as any feller, and a con- 
siderable money, and I thought I might as well 
>spend it so as any way. Well come to Phila- 
delphia, I found the Nixon's very rich and 
mazin' respectable ; and I got acquainted with 
the family, and they had a darter by the name 
ofSolena, and she was dreadful handsome, and 
she struck my fancy right oft' the first sight I 
had on her. She was handsome in fetur and 
pretty spoken and handsome behaved every 
way. Well I made up my mind the first sight 
I had on her, I'd have her if I could git her. 
I'd been in Philadelphia 'bout a week, and I 



236 P^^<^^ P'>P^ '^'^ question, and Solcna says " Fis." 

axed her for her company, and 'twas granted. 
I made it my business to wait on her, and ride 
round with her, and visit her alone, as much as 
I could. The old folks seemed to like it ma- 
zinly, and that pleased me, and I went the 
length of my rope, and felt my oats tu. I treated 
her like a gentleman as far as I knew how — 
I took her to New York three times, in compa- 
ny with her brothers and their sweethearts; 
and we w^ent in great splendor tu, and I found 
that every day, I was nearin' the prize, and 
finally I popped the question, and arter some 
hesitation, she said, 'Yis, Peter.' But I had 
another Cape to double, and that was to git the 
consent of the old folks ; and so one Sunday 
evenin', as we was a courtin' all alone in the 
parlor, I concluded, a faint heart never won a 
fair lady ; and so I brushes up my hair, and 
starts into the old folks' room, and I right out 
with the question ; and he says. 

" ' What do you mean, Mr. Wheeler ?' 

*' ' I mean jist as I say. Sir ! May I marry 
Solena.' 

*' ' Do you think you can spend your life hap- 
py with her ?' 

*' ' Yis, Sir.' 



Wedding-day sut. 237 



" ' Did you ever see any body in all your 
travels, you liked better ?' 

" ' No, Sir ! She's the apple of my eye, and 
the joy of my heart.' 

" ' I have no objection Mr. Wheeler. Now 
Ma, how do you feel ?' 

" ' Oh ! I think Solena had better say, Yis.' 

" And then I tell ye, my heart fluttered 
about in my bosom with joy. 

" *Oh, love 'tis a killin' thing ; 
Did you ever feel the pang V 

" So the old gentleman takes out a bottle of 
old wine from the sideboard, and I takes a glass 
with him, and goes back to Solena. When 
I comes in, she looks up with a smile and says, 
« What luck .?' I says, ' Good luck.' I shall 
win the prize if nothin' happens ! and now 
Solena you must go in tu, and you had better 
go in while the broth is hot. So she goes in, 
pretty soon she comes trippin' along back, and 
sets down in my lap, and I says, ' what luck ?' 
and she says ' good.^ So we sot the bridal day, 
and fixed on the weddin' dresses, and so we 
got all fixin's ready and even the Domine was 
spoke for. And one Sabba-day arter meet- 
in,' I goes home and dines with the family, and 



238 Solena dies in his arms. 



arter dinner we walked out over Schuylkill 
bridge, and at evenin' we went to a gentle- 
man's where she had been a good deal ac- 
quainted ; and there was quite a company on 
us, and we carried on pretty brisk. She was 
naturally a high-lived thing, and full of glee ; 
and she got as wild as a hawk, and she unrest- 
led and scuffled as gals do, and got all tired 
out, and she come and sets down in my lap and 
looks at me, and says, ' Peter help me ;' and I 
put my hand round her and asked her what 
was the matter, and she fetched a sigh, and 
groan, and fell back and died in my arms ! ! ! 
A physician come in, and says he, * she's dead 
and without help, for she has burst a blood-ves- 
sel in her breast.' And there she lay cold and 
lifeless, and I thought I should go crazy. 

" She was carried home and laid out, and 
the second day she was buried, and I didn't 
sleep a wink till she was laid in the grave ; 
and oh ! when we come to lower her coffin 
down in the grave, and the cold clods of the 
valley begun to fall on her breast, I felt that 
my heart was in the coffin, and I wished I 
could die and lay down by her side. 

*' For weeks and months arter her death, I 
felt that I should go ravin' distracted. I 



Peter's lament over the grave of his lady love. 2 39 

couldn't realize that she was dead ; oh ! Sir, 
the world looked jist Hke a great dreadful pri- 
son to me. I stayed at her father's, and for 
weeks I used to go once or twice a day to her 
tomb, and weep, and stay, and linger round, and 
the spot seemed sacred where she rested. 

" Well, I stayed in Philadelphia some months 
arter this, and I tell ye I felt as though my all 
was gone. I stood alone in the world, as de- 
solate as could be, and I determined I never 
would agin try to git me a wife. It seemed to 
me I was jist like some old wreck, I'd seen 
on the shore. 

A. " Peter, you make me think of Walter 
Scott's description of Rhoderic Dhu, in his 
* Lady of the Lake.' 

*' ' As some tall ship, whose lofty prore, 
Shall never stem the billows more, 
Deserted by her gallant band, 
Amid the breakers lies astrand ; 
So on his couch lay Rhoderic Dhu, 
And oft his feverish limbs he threw, 
In toss abrupt ; as when her sides 
Lie rocking in the advancing tides 
That shake her frame with ceaseless beat 
But cannot heave her from her seat. 
Oh ! how unlike her course on sea, 
Or his free step, on hill and lea.' 



240 ^e^c^ 'roves round the country toforgU his feelings. 

P. " Yis, Sir ! I was jist like that same 
Rhoderic ; what'de call him ? Oh ! I was icorse, 
the world was a prison to me, and I wanted 
to lay my bones down at rest by the dust of 
Solena. I finally went back to New York, 
and stayed there for a while, and then up to 
New Haven, and stayed there two months, in 
Mr. Johnson's family ; and we used to board 
college students ; and we had oceans of oys- 
ters and clams ; and New Haven is by all odds 
the handsomest place I ever see in this country 
or in Europe ; and finally I sailed back to 
New York, arter tryin' to bury my feelin's in 
one W'ay and another. But in all my wander- 
in's, 1 couldn't forgit Solena, She seemed to 
cling to me like life, and I'd spend hours and 
hours in thinkin' about her, and I never used 
to think about her without tears. 

" Well, I thought I would try to bury my 
feelin's and forgit Solena, and so I hires out a 
year to IVlr. Bronson, to drive hack, and arter 
I'd been with him a few months, I called up to 
Mr. Macy's, my Quaker friend, and I felt 
kind'a bad to go there tu and not find Susan, 
for I had the biggest curiosity in the world to 
find out where she'd departed tu ; but I 
thought I'd go and talk with the old folks, and 
see if they'd heard any thing about Susan. 



Sitsan Macy redeemed from Slavery. 241 

" Well, I slicks up and goes, and pulls the 
bell, and who should open the door but Susan 
herself, .^ 

" I says, ' my soul, Susan, how on 'arth are 
you here ? I thought you was dead.' And she 
says as she burst into tears, ' I have been all 
but dead. Come in and set down, and I'll tell 
you all about it.' 

" I says, 'my heavens ! Susan where have you 
been and how have ye fared ?' 

"She says, ' I've been in slavery, .^ and 
fared hard enough ;' and then she had to go to 
the door, for the bell rung ; and agin pretty 
soon she comes back and begins her story, and 
as 'taint very long, and pretty good, I'll tell it, 
and if you're a mind to put it in the book you 
may, for I guess many a feller will be glad to 
read it. 

" « Well,' begins Susan, ' I went down to 
the vessel, to carry a bundle, and three ruffins 
seized hold on me, and I hollered and screamed 
with all my might, and one on 'em clapped his 
hand on my face, and another held me down, 
and took out a knife and swore if I didn't stop 
my noise he\l stick it through wy heart ; and 
they dragged me down into the hold, where 
there was seven others that had been stole in 
21 



242 The story of Iter trials in slavery — Charleston. 

the same way ; and these two fellers chained 
me up, and I cried and sobbed till I was so 
faint I couldn't set up. Along in the course 
of the forenoon they fetched me some coarse 
food, but I had no appetite, and I wished my- 
self dead a good many times, for I couldn't git 
news to master. I continued in that state for 
two or three days, and found no relief but by 
submitting to my fate, and I was doleful enough 
off, for I couldn't see sun, moon, or stars, for 
I should think two weeks ; and then a couple 
of these ruffins come and took me out into the 
forecastle, and my companions, and they told 
me all about how they'd been stole ; and we 
was as miserable a company as ever got to- 
gether. Come on deck, I see five gentlemen „^£j^ 
and one on 'em axed me if I could cook and 
wait on gentlemen and ladies, and I says * yis, 
Sir,' with my eyes full of tears, and my heart 
broke with sorrow ; and he axed me how old I 
was? I says, 'seventeen,' and he turns round 
to the master of the vessel and says, ' I'll take 
this girl.' And he paid four hundred and fifty 
dollars for me, and betook me to his house; 
and I found out his name was Woodford, and 
he told me I was in Charleston ; but I couldn't 
forgit the happy streets of New York. Now I 



A patriarch gets one hundred lashes. 243 

gin up all expectation of ever seein' my own 
land agin', and I submitted to my fate as well 
as I could, but ^twas a dreadful heart-hreakirC 
scene. Master ims dreadful savage^ and his 
wife was a despod cross ugly luoman. When 
he goes into the house he says to his wife, ' now 
I've got you a good gal, put that wench on the 
plantation.' And he pointed to a gal that had 
been a chambermaid ; and then turnin' to me 
says, * and you look out or you'll git there, and 
if you do you'll know it.'' 

" I'd been there four or five weeks, and I 
heard master makin' a despod cussin' and 
swearin' in the evenin', and I heard him over- 
say, * I'll settle with the black cuss to-morrow ; 
I'll have his hide tanned.' 

" So the next day, arter breakfast, mistress 
orders me down into the back yard, and I 
found two hundred slaves there ; and there was 
an old man there with a gray head, stripped 
and drawed over a whipping-block his hands 
tied down, and the big tears a rollin' down his 
face ; and he looked exactly like some old gray 
headed, sun-burnt revolutioner ; and a white 
man stood over him with a cat-o'-nine-tails in 
his hand, and he was to give him one hundred 
lashes. «,£][) And he says, * now look on all on 



244 Tlie bloody block. 



ye, and if you git into a scrape you'll have this 
cat-o'-nine-tails wrapped round you ;' and 
then he begun to whip, and he hadn't struck 
mor'n two or three blows, afore I see the blood 
run, and he was stark naked, and his back and 
body was all over covered with scars, and he 
says in kind'a broken language, ' Oh ! massa 
don't kill me.' * Tan his hide,' says master, 
and he kept on whippin', and the old man 
groaned like as if he was a dyin', and he got 
the hundred lashes, .^ and then was untied 
and told to go about his work ; and I looked at 
the block, and it was kivered with blood, and 
that same block didn't git clear from blood as 
long as I stayed there. ,,^ 

" ' Well, this spectacle affected me so, I could 
scarcely git about the house, for I expected 
next would be my turn ; and I was so afraid I 
shouldn't do right I didn't half do my work. 

*' * It wore upon me so I grew poor through 
fear and grief. I would look out and see the 
two hundred slaves come into the back yard to 
be fed with rice, and they had the value of 
about a quart of rice a day, I guess. 

" ' Every day, more or less would be whip- 
ped till the blood run to the ground ; and every 
day fresh blood could be seen on the block, — 



Susan sees Samud Macy. 245 



and what for I never found out, for I darn't 
ax anybody, and I had no hberty of saying any- 
thing to the field hands. 

* " I used often to look out of the window to 
see people pass and repass, and see if I couldn't 
see somebody that I knew ; and I finally got 
sick, and was kept down some time, and I jist 
dragged about and darn't say one word, for I 
should have been put on the j)lantation for bein^ 
sick! and I meant to do the best I could till I 
dropped down dead ; but the almost whole 
cause on it was grief, and the rest was cruel 
hardship. Well, things got so, I thought I must 
die soon, and in the height of my sorrow, I look- 
ed out and see Samuel Macy — Master Macy's 
second son, walkin' along the street, and I 
could hardly believe my eyes ; and I wasstandin' 
in the door, and I catches the broom, and 
goes down the steps a sweepin', and calls him 
by name as he comes along, and I tells him a 
short story, and he says ' I'll git thee free, only 
be patient a few weeks.' 1 neither sees nor 
hears a word on him for over four weeks, but 
I was borne up by hope, and that made my 
troubles lighter. AVell, in about four weeks, 
one day, jist arter dinner, there comes a gen- 
tleman and raps at the front door, and I goes 
21* 



246 The hand of God in Susan's redemption. 



and opens the door, and there stood old Master 
Macy, and I flies and hugs him, and he says 
* how does thee do, Susan ?' I couldn't speak, 
and as soon as I could I tells my story ; and 
Master Macy then speaks to mistress, who 
heard the talk and had come out of the parlor, 
and says, ' this girl is a member of my family, 
and I shall take her,' and then master come in 
and abused Master Macy dreadfully ; but he 
says, * come along with me, Susan ;' and, 
without a bonnet or anything on to go out with 
I took him by the hand, and went down to the 
ship ; and, afore I had finished my story, an 
officer comes and takes old Master Macy, and 
he leaves me in the care of his son Samuel, 
aboard, and he was up street about three hours, 
tendin' a law-suit, and then he come back, and 
about nine o'clock that evenin' we hauled off 
from that cussed shore, and in two weeks we 
reached New York, and here I am, in Master 
Macy's old kitchen. 

'' 'Well, he watches for this slave ship that stole 
me, and one day he come in and said he had 
taken it, and had five men imprisoned ; and the 
next court had them all imprisoned for life, 
and there they be yit. And now there's no 
man, gentle or simple, that gits me to do an 



The dead alive, and the lost found. 247 

arrant out of sight of the house. Bought wit 
is the best, but I bought mine dreadful dear. 
When I got back the whole family cried, and 
Mistress Macy says, 

*' * Let us rejoice \ for the dead is alive, and the 
lost is found." ' 



248 Stays till midnight hearirC Susan's story. 



CHAPTER 11. 

Kidnappin' in New York — Peter spends three year8 in Hart- 
ford — couldn't help thinkin' of Solena — Hartford Conven- 
tion — stays a year in Middletovvn — hires to a man in West 
Springfield — makes thirty-five dollars fishin' nights — great 
revival in Springfield — twenty immersed — sexton of church 
in Old Springfield — religious sentiments — returns to New 
York — Solena again — Susan Macy married — pulls up for 
the Bay State again — lives eighteen months in Westfield — 
six months in Sharon — Joshua Nichols leaves his wife — 
Peter goes after him and finds him in Spencertown, New 
York — takes money back to Mrs. Nichols — returns to Spen- 
certown — lives at Esq. Pratt's — Works next summer for old 
Captain Beale — his character — falls in love — married — lose.s 
his only child — wife helpless eight months — great revival of 
1827 — feels more like gittin' religion — " One sabba'day when 
when the minister preached at me" — a resolution to get re- 
ligion — how to become a christian — evening prayer-meeting 
—Peter's convictions deep and distressing — going home he 
kneels on a rock and prayed — his prayer — the joy of are- 
deemed soul — his family rejoice with him. 

Peter. " Well, I sot a hearin' Susan's story 
till midnight, and that brought back old scenes 
agin, and there I sot and listened to her story 
till I had ene'most cried my eyes out of my 
head, and I have only gin you the outline. 



KidnappirC in New York. 249 

And that kidnappin' used to be carried on that 
way in New York year after year, and it's car- 
ried on yit. ,^* Why, they used to steal 



* It became so common in New York that there 
was no safety for a colored person there, and phi- 
lanthropy and rehgion demanded some protection 
for them against such a shocking system. — At last 
there was a vigilance committee organized for the 
purpose of ascertaining the names and residences 
of every colored person in the city ; and this 
committee used regularly to visit all on the roll, and 
almost every day some one was missing. The re- 
sult has been that several hundreds of innocent 
men and women and children have been retaken 
from their bondage, from the holds of respectable 
merchantmen in New York, to the parlours of south- 
ern gentry in New-Orleans. The facts which have 
been brought out by this committee are awful be- 
yond description. — It is one of the noblest, and 
most patriotic and efficient organization on the 
globe. But their design expands itself beyond the 
protection and recovery of kidnapped friends ; — it 
also lifts a star of guidance and promise upon the 
path of the fugitive slave ; it helps him on his way to 
freedom, and not one week passes by without wit- 
nessing the glorious results of this humane and 
benevolent institution, in the protection of the free 



250 Hartford and Middletoitm — Philanthropists. 

away any and every colored person they could 
steal, and this is all carried on by northern 
folks tu, and it's fifty times worse than Louisi- 
ana slavery. 

*' Well, I stayed in NewYork till my time was 
out, and then went to Hartford and worked 
three years, and enjoyed myself pretty well, 
onli/ I couldn't Jielp thinkin' 'hoiit Solena, She 
was mixed up with all my dreams and thoughts, 
and I used to spend hours and hours in think- 
in' about what I'd lost. But arter all I suffer- 
ed, I'm kind'a inclined to think 'twas all kind 
in God to take her away, for arter this, I never 
was so wicked agin nigh. I hadn't time or 
disposition to hunt up my old comrades, and if 
any time I begun to plunge into sin, then the 
thought of Selena's memory would come up 
afore me and check me in a minute, but I was 
yit a good ways from rale religion. 

or the redemption of the enslaved. The Humane 
Society, whose object is to recover to life those who 
have been drowned, enlists the patronage and en- 
comiums of the great and good, and yet this Vigi- 
lance Committee are insulted and abused by many 
of the public presses in New York, and most of the 
city authorities. — Why 1 Slavery has infused its 
deadly poison into the heart of the North, 



A revival of religion in Springfield. 251 

" While I was there, in December, 1814, 
the famous Hartford Convention sot with clos- 
ed doors, and nobody could find out what they 
was about, and every body was a talkin' about 
it, and they han't got ov^er talkin' about it, and 
I don't b'lieve they ev^er will. The same win- 
ter the war closed and peace was declared. I 
could tell a good many stories about the war, 
but I guess 'twould make the book rather too 
long, and every body enemost knows all about 
the last war. 

*' Well, I went down to Middletown and 
stayed a year there, and then I went to hire out 
to a man in West Springfield, and he was a far- 
mer, and he hadn't a chick nor child in the 
world, and he had a share in a fishin' place on 
the Conecticut, and he was as clever as the 
day is long. He let me fish nights and have 
all I ffot, and sometimes I've made a whole 
lot of money at one haul, and in that season T 
made thirty-five dollars jist by fishin' nights, 
besides good wages — and I didn't make a dol- 
lar fishin' for Gideon Morehouse nights for 
years ! 

<' While I was there a Baptist minister come 
on from Boston and preached some time, and 
they had a great revival, and I see twenty im- 



252 Peter sexton of the church in Springfield. 

mersed down in the Connecticut, and 'twas 
one of the most solemn scenes that ever I wit- 
nessed. 

" They went down two by two to the river, 
and he made a prayer and then sung this hymn, 
and I shan't ever forget it, for a good many 
on 'em was young. 

" ' Now in the heat of youthful blood. 
Remember your Creator God ; 
Behold the months come hastening on 
When you shall say * my joys are gone.' 

*' And then he went in and baptized 'em ; and 
I know I felt as though I wished I was a chris- 
tian, for it seemed to me there was somethin' 
very delightful in it, and then they sung and 
prayed agin, and then went home. 

*' Arter this I lived in Old Springfield and 
was sexton of the church there ; and while I 
rung that bell I heard good preachin' every 
Sunday, and I larnt more 'bout religion than 
I'd ever knowed in all my life. I begun to feel 
a good deal more serious and the need of get- 
tin' religion. 

" Arter my time was out there, I went down 
to New York, and there I met Solena's broth- 
er, and that brought every thing fresh to 



Susan Macy married — -pidls up for the Bay State. 253 

mind agin, and for weeks agin I spent sorrow- 
ful hours. I thought I had about got over it 
and the wound was healed ; but then 'twould 
git tore open agin and bleed afresh, and sor- 
rowful as ever. It did seem to me that 
uothin' w^ould banish the image of that gal 
from my heart. 

'* I used to call and see Susan Macy occa- 
sionally, and she was now Mrs. Williams, and 
lived in good style tu, for a colored person. 
She was married at Mr. Macy's and they 
made a great weddin', and all the genteel dar- 
kies in New York was there ; and I wan't sat- 
isfied with waitin' on one, I must have twoy 
and if we didn't have a stir among our color 
about them times I miss my guess ; and Mr. 
Macy set her out with five hundred dollars, 
and she had a fine husband and they lived to- 
gether as comfortable as you please. 

" Now I concluded I'd quit the city for good, 
I spent more money there and had worse hab- 
its, and besides all this I wanted to git away 
as fur as I could from the scene of my disap- 
pintment. 

" Well, I pulled up stakes agin and put out 
for the Bay State agin, and I put into West- 
field, and stayed there eighteen months, and 
33 



254 -^ broken heart — Peter gds to Spencertotcn. 

made money and saved it, and behaved my- 
self, and 'tended meetin' every sabba'day, and 
gained friends and was as respectable as any 
body. From Westfield I went to Sharon and 
there I stayed six months, and 'tended a saw 
mill, and there was a colored man there by 
the name of Joshua Nichols, who had married 
a fine gal, and he lived with her till she had 
one child and then left her, and went out to 
Columbia county, New York ; and I started off 
for Albany, and she axed me if I wouldn't 
find her husband on my route, and so I left 
Sharon and got here to Spencertown, and 
found him, and axed him why he woidd be so 
cruel as to leave his wife f He says ' if you'll 
go and caiTy some money and a letter down 
to her I'll pay you.' So he gin me the things 
and I put out for Sharon, and when Miss 
Nichols broke open the letter she burst into 
tears, and says I, " why Miss Nichols what's 
the matter ?" " Why Joshua says this is the 
last letter I may ever expect from him." — 
Well, I stayed one night, and come back and 
concluded I'd go on for Albany, but when I got 
to Erastus Pratt's he wanted to hire me six 
months, and I hired, and his family was nice 
folks, and he had a whole fleet of gals — and 



Peter gets married. 255 



they was all as fine as silk, but I used to tell 
Aunt Phebe, that Harriet was the rather the 
nicest — on 'em all. Arter my six months was 
out, I worked a month in shoein' up his family, 
and 1 guess like enough some on 'em may be 
in the garret yet. 

* ' Next summer I hired out to old Capt. Beale, 
and he was a noble man, and did as much 
for supportin' Benevolent Societies as any 
other man in town, and in the mean time, I 
had got acquainted with her who is now my 
wife, and this summer I was married to her by 
Esq. Jacob Lawrence, and in the winter we 
went to keepin' house. 

" When we had been married over a year, we 
had a leetle boy born, and the leetle feller died 
and I felt bad enough, for he was my only child, 
and it was despod hard work too, to give him 
up. I had at last found a woman I loved, and 
all my wanderings and extravagancies was 
over, and I was gettin' in years, and I thought 
I could now be happy and enjoy all the com- 
forts of a home and fireside, but this was all 
blasted when I laid that leetle feller in the 
grave, and my wife was sick and helpless eight 
months. 

*'In 1827 a great Revival spread over this 



256 Or^at Revival in 1827-8— Religion. 

whole region, and was powerful here, and I 
used to go to all the meetin's, and I be- 
gun to think more about religion than I ever 
did in all my life; and these feelin's hung on to 
me 'bout a year, and agin I gin myself up to 
the world, and plunged into sin, and grieved the 
Spirit of God, and grew dreadful vile, as all 
the folks 'round here will say, if you ax 'em. — 
And I myself, who knows more 'bout myself 
than any other body* s'pose that at hearty I 
was one of the wickedest men in the world. 

*' Well, along in 1828 the religious feelin' 
'round in this region, begun to rise agin 'round 
in this neighbourhood, and there was a good 
many prayer meetin's held, principally at Dea- 
con Mayhew's, and Esq. Pratt's, and I used to 
'tend 'em pretty steady, and I got back my old 
feelin' agin, and now felt more a good deal like 
gittin' religion, than I ever had ; and rain or 
shine, I'd be at the meetin's, and I detarmined 
I'd go through it, if I went at all. This church 
here, which has since got so tore and distract- 
ed, was all united, and seemed to be a diggin' 
all the same way, and Christ was among 'em. 
There was one Sabhathday, I shan't ever for git, 
and when I went to meetin', and the min- 
ister took his text " Turn ye, turn ye, for 



The way to hecome a Christian explained. 257 



why will ye die ?" the very minute the words 
come out of his mouth, an arrow went to my 
heart, and I felt the whole sarmint was aimed 
at me, and I felt despod guilty. I went home, 
and that night I was distressed beyond all ac- 
count, and I went to bed troubled to death. 
But I formed the resolution, if there was any 
thing in religion I'd have it, if I could git it, 
and I was detarmined as I could be that I 
would hunt for the way of Salvation ; and when 
I found it, I travelled in it, and consider that 
there I begun right. But I was as ignorant of 
rale religion as a horse-block, and I didn't 
know how to go to work. Sometimes, some- 
thing would say, 'Oh! Peter, give up the 
business, you can't git it through,' but I held 
on to my resolution despod tight; and I think, 
that is the way for a body to go about getting 
religion ; on the start, be detarmined to hunt 
for the path of duty, and as soon as you find it, 
go right to travellin' on it, and keep on ; I know 
I had some duty to do to God, and I knew I 
must hunt for it if I found it, and do it if I 
ever got the favor of God. 

" Well, one night there was a prayer meetin' 
in the church, and a shower of prayer come 
down on the house like a tempest, and oh ! how 
22* 



258 -'i fra§er maeting—PeUr pra§s on the roek. 



lliey (lid beseech God that niirht — as the ll'ibU'. 
t^ay:*, " witli stroni: cryin' and tears." 

'• Deacon Mayliew •rot u])aiid says, " There's 
full liberty for any body to «irit up and speak or 
pray." Ami I felt as thoii;;h 1 must irit up 
and say soniethin' or pray, I was so distressed ; 
l)ut tlien I WHS a bluck man, and was afeard I 
couldn't pray nice enough, and so I set still, 
but I felt like death. A number of young con- 
verts, prayed and made ^'ood prayers, and 
there was a despod feelin* there I tell ye. 

** Arter meetin* a iimn] many folks spoke 
to me, but I eouldn't answer 'em for tears ; 
and so I started lor Ikhmc, nvIh'u I was ffoin' 
cross the lots a cryin' I come to a large 
flat rock, and looked round to see if any body 
',vas near l»y, and then I kneeled down and 
'twas x\n\/irst time I ever ra/j/ prayed. 

" 1 beirun, but I was so full I couldn't only 
say these words and I recollect *em well. 

" * Oh! Lord, here I be a poor wretch ; do 
N\ ith mc just as you please ; for I have sinneil 
with an out stretched arm, and I feel unworthy of 
of the least marcy, but I beg for hloodj the 
blood of him tliat died Calvary ! Oh ! lielp me, 
keep uj) my detarmination to do my duty, and 
submit to let you dispose on me jist as you 



Ftter finds StilctUion — his family rejoice. 2o0 

please, fur time and eternity; oh ! Lord hoar 
this first prayer of a hcU-dcsarving sinner.' " 

"Well, I got up, and felt what I never fcU 
afure ; I felt wiUini^ to do God's will, and that 
1 was reconciled to God ; afore this, I had felt 
as thoiii^h (iv 1 was opposed to nie, and I'd 
got to shift round afore he'd meet me, and feci 
reconciled to me. I looked up to heaven, and 
I couldn't help sayin', * My Father :' never be- 
fore nor sence, have I felt so much joy and 
peace as 1 felt then, I was glad to be in God's 
hand:?, and let him reign, for I knew he would 
do right, and I felt sich a love fur him, as I 
can't describe. 

" I got up from the rock, and the world did 
look beautiful round me; the moon shone clear, 
and the stars, and then I thought about David, 
when he tells about his feelin's when he looked 
at the same moon and stars ; you see I was 
changed and that made the world look so new ; 
and this beautiful world was God's world, and 
God was ?ni/ Father., and that made me happy, 
and that is 'bout all I can say 'bout it. 

'* I went home, and found my wife and mo- 
ther-in-law abed and 'sleep, and I lit up the 
candle and wakes 'em up, and says, 

" I've found the pearl of great price." 



• r < 
200 Ends kitftmUg idtar—joff nf a rrJuemed $oml. 

•'I (^itd down the IVcw Testament, for I luiJ 
no Hilile, unil never owneil one till this time, 
and says, " I'll read a chapter and then make 
ii prayer, (for you Hec my wife iiad larnl me to 
read artcr a tashion,) and they say * Tliat'd 
right i*eter, I'm i^lad you feel a.s thouirh you 
could pray,' I opened the Testament to the 
1 1th cliaptcr of John, * Let not your lieart he 
tri)ul)le<l; ye lielieve in God, hclieve also in 
nu.',' iVc. Then I made a prayer and set up 
my family altar, and I have prayed in my family 
every day, and mean to keep it up, for 1 be- 
. lieve all christians ouijht to pray mornin' and 
evenin' in their families. 

•' Well, I went to bed and talked to my wife 

hoiit ri'iiirinn, till I fairly talked her asleep, 

and then I lay awake and ihoiii^hl, and prayed, 

and wept for joy, and it will be a good wiiile 

afore I forgit that night. 

" For who can express 

The sweet comfort and peace 

Of a sou! ia its arUcst Love." 

EM). 

R D - 1 3 (I 



^^^^<- ^ 



A' 



^^ 



X O ,r 







t"?^" v^" .--0,% "■>^,••..\'°" 



•*■.,<■^' 



■^^ ,.<^ 



v\ 



<p 



A ^tr ' • . s - 






^"~y 



"tf,. c,<r .\_ 




'^>'-' 0^ 



DOBBS BROS. ^ ^ ,-^^ t • 'J-! - ^ 

LIBRARY BINDING -^ .^ + ^07^- 

^^ FLA. ' V * *' o « o ^ o.' 

"^^ v 



^W32084 



